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Erskine, Thomas, 1788-1870. J 


Remarks on the internal 
evidence for the truth of 


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ON THE 


INTERNAL EVIDENCE 


FOR THE TRUTH OF — 


REVEALED RELIGION. 


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Br THOMAS” ERSKINB, Ese. 
ADVOCATE, 


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Second American from the fifth enlarged Edinburgh 
edition. 


PHILADELPHIA: 


ANTHONY FINLEY, CORNER OF CHESNUT AND 
FOURTH STREET, 


1823. 


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- RECOMMENDATIONS. 


Dear Sir, 


Ihave read Erskine’s treatise on “ The Internal Evi- 
dence for the Truth of Revealed Religion.” It is an ad- 
mirable performance, filled with judicious observations, — 
and interspersed with happy and interesting illustrations 
of the various points discussed. It is stamped with the 
image of a strong, accurate and powerful mind. Having 
himself, by the grace of God, experienced the moral and 
regenerating influence of Divine truth, the author wishes 
that others may be brought under the quickening and - 
sanctifying operation of the same transforming power. 
This work is well calculated to call up the attention of 
nominal christians, as well as professed infidels, to the 
high and commanding claims of the Bible, as a revelation 
given by Jehovah to form the character of sinful man for 
eternity. 

J. J. JANEWAY. 

July 17, 1821. 


Mr. Finuky, 

IT have read, with great pleasure, Erskine’s treatise 
on “The Internal Evidence for the Truth of Revealed 
Religion.” , 

It is, in my judgment, a work of rare merit. The style 
is lucid, chaste and nervous. The illustrations are hap- 

* 


he 


“IV 
pily chosen, and skilfully applied. ‘ The internal evi- 
dence for the truth of revealed religion,” is not a new 
subject; but this writer’s method of treating it, is new 


and natural; and to my mind, convincing and satisfactory. 
I wish you success in the publication. 


W. NEILL, 
Pastor, Sixth Presbyterian Church, Philad. 
July 17th, 1821. 


Dear Sin, 


I have read with much pleasure, and rejoice that you 
propose to republish, Mr. Erskine’s valuable treatise on 
the internal evidence of Christianity. It deserves, and 
I hope will receive, a careful perusal, from those per- 
sons especially, who whilst they readily assent to the au- 
thenticity of the Bible, are too little acquainted with 
‘‘ the internal structure” of that religion which it teach- 
es: It isa specimen of sound and ingenious argumenta- 
tion, conducted in a perspicuous, and animating style, 
whose attractions will be very soon felt and confessed, 
by the attentive reader. It abounds with striking, yet 
chaste illustrations; presents elevated views of evangeli- 
cal truth; and cherishes a pure and enlightened piety, 
offering no offence to true christians of any denomina- 
tion. It is the author’s design to enforce the sentiment, 
that as the Bible embodies in itself the principal evi- 
dence of its truth, he who desires to form a correct 
judgment of the character of this book, instead of reading 
many elaborate works on the external proofs of “its in- 
spiration, should, first of all, give a candid and careful at- 


Vv 


tention to the Bible itself: leading us to this most conso- 
latory inference, that men of learning are not the only 
persons capable of obtaining an intelligent assurance of 
the truth of the gospel, but that this assurance is alike 
attainable, by the poorer and less instructed portion of 
mankind. 

Believing that by reprinting this interesting book, you 
will be instrumental of promoting the best of causes, I 
have, agreeably to your request, transmitted these re- 
marks to your disposal. 

Respectfully, &c. 
T. H. SKINNER. 
Mr. Anthony Finley. 
July 17th, 1821. 


The Rev. Dr. A. Alexander says, in relation to this 
work, “ This is the production of a superior mind, on 
which the truths of Revelation seem to have operated 
effectually.” 


J. CRISSY AND G. GOODMAN, PRINTERS. 


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INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 


Tuere is a principle in our nature which 
makes us dissatisfied with unexplained and un- 
connected facts; which leads us to theorize all 
the particulars of our knowledge, or to form in our 
minds some system of causes sufficient to explain 
or produce the effects which we see; and which 
teaches us to believe or disbelieve in the truth of 
any system which may be presented to us, just as 
it appears adequate or inadequate to afford that 
explanation of which we are in pursuit. We 
have an intuitive perception that the appearances 
of Nature are connected by the relation of cause 
and effect; and we have also an instinctive desire 
to classify and arrange the seemingly confused 
mass of facts with which we.are surrounded, 
according to this distinguishing relationship. 
From these principles have proceeded all the 
theories which were ever formed by man. But 
these principles alone can never make a true 
theory: They teach us to theorize; but experi- 
ence is necessary in order to theorize justly, We 
must be acquainted with the ordinary operation 
of causes, before we can combine them into a 


A 


theory which will satisfy the mind. But when 
we are convinced of the real existence of a cause 
in Nature, and when we find that a class of phy- 
sical facts is explained by the supposition of this 
cause, and tallies exactly with its ordinary opera- 
tion, we resist both reason and instinct when we 
resist the conviction that this class of facts does 
result from this cause. On this process of rea- 
soning is grounded our conviction, that the va- 
rious phenomena of the heavenly bodies are re- 
sults from the principle or law of gravitation. 
That great master of theories, Adam Smith, has 
given a most appropriate and beautiful illustra- 
tion of this process, in his ‘ History of Astron- 
omy.” He has there shown, how the specula- 
tive system was always accommodated to the 
phenomena which had been observed; and how, 
on each new discovery in point of fact, a corres- 
ponding change necessarily took place in the form 
of the system. 

There is another process of reasoning, differ- 
ing somewhat from that which has been deserib- 
ed, yet closely allied to it; by which, instead of 
ascending from effects to a cause, we descend 
from a cause to effects. When we are convinc- 
ed of the existence of a cause, and are acquaint- 
ed with its ordinary mode of operation, we are 
prepared to give a certain degree of credit to a 
history of other effects attributed to it, provided 
_we can trace the connection between them, As 


a 


5 


an illustration of this, I shall suppose, that the 
steam-engine, and the application of it to the 
movement of vessels, was known in China in the 
days of Archimedes; and that a foolish lying tra- 
veller had found his way from Sicily to China, 
and had there seen an exhibition of a steam-boat, 
and had been admitted to examine the mechani- 
cal apparatus of it,—and, upon his return home, 
had, amongst many palpable fables, related the 
true particulars of this exhibition, —what feeling 
would this relation have probably excited in his 
audience? The fact itself was a strange one, and 
different in appearance from any thing with which 
they were acquainted: It was also associated 
with other stories that seemed to have falsehood 
stamped on the very face of them, What means, 
then, had the hearers of distinguishing the true 
from the false? Some of the rabble might proba- 
bly give a stupid and wondering kind of credit to 
the whole; whilst che judicious but unscientific 
hearers would reject the whole. Now, supposing 
that the relation had come to the ears of Archime- 
des, and that he had sent for the man, and inter- 
rogated him; and, from his unorderly and un- 
scientific, but accurate specification of boilers, 
and cylinders, and pipes, and furnaces, and 
wheels; had drawn out the mechanical theory of 


the steam-boat,—he might have told his friends, 


‘¢ The traveller may be a liar; but this is a truth. 
I have a stronger evidence for it than his testimo- 
Ai AQ 


6 


ny, or the testimony of any man: It is a truth in the 
nature of things. The effect which the man has 
described is the legitimate and certain result of 
the apparatus which he has described. If he has 
fabricated this account, he must be a great phi- 
losopher. At all events, his narration is founded 
on an unquestionable general truth.” Had the 
traveller committed an error in his specification, 
that -defect 5 rould have operated as an obstacle to 
the conviction of Archimedes; because, where the 
facts which are testified constitute the parts of a 
system, they must, in order to produce convic- 
tion, be viewed in their relation to one another, 
and in their combined bearing on the general re- 
sult. Unless they are thus viewed, they are not 
seen as they really exist,—they do not hold their 
proper ground, A single detached pipe or boil- 
er or valve could not produce the effects of the 
steam-engine; and a man who knows no more 
about it than that it contains such a detached part, 
may very well laugh at the effects related of the 
whole machine; but, in truth, the fault lies in his 
own ignorance of the subject. 

But these two processes of reasoning which 
have been described, are not exclusively applied 
to physical causes and effects: We reason pre- 
cisely in the same way with regard to men and 
their actions. When the history of a man’s life 
is presented to us, we naturally theorize upon it; 
and, from a comparison of the different facts con- 


7 


tained in it, we arrive at a conviction that he was 
actuated hy ambition, avarice, benevolence, or 
some other principle. We know that these prin- 
ciples exist, and we know also their ordinary 
mode of operation: When, therefore, we see the 
operation, we refer it to the cause which best ex- 
plains it. In this manner we arrange the cha- 
racters with which we are acquainted under cer- 
tain classes; and we anticipate the conduct of our 
friends when they come to be placed in certain 
circumstances. And when we are at a distance 
from any of them, and receive an account of their 
conduct upon some particular occasion, we give 
our unhesitating belief at once, if the account 
coincides with that abstract view which we have 
taken of their characters, but if it varies very con- 
siderably from or is directly opposed to that view, 
we refuse our immediate belief, and wait for fur- 
ther evidence, Thus, if we hear that a friend, 
in whose integrity we have perfect confidence, 
has committed a dishonest action, we place our 
former knowledge of our friend in opposition to 
the testimony of our informer, and we anxiously 
Jook for an explanation. Before our minds are 
easy on the subject, we must either discover some 
circurastance in the action which may bring it 
under the general principle which we have form- 
ed with regard to his character, or else we must 
form to es some new general principle 
which will explain it. 


ai 


3 


We reason in the same way of the intelligence 
of actions as we do of their morality. When we 
see an object obtained by means of a plan evi- 
dently adapted for its accomplishment, we refer 
the formation of the plan to design. We reason 
in this case also from the cause to the effect; and 
we conclude, that a strong intelligence, when 
combined with a desire after a particular object, 
will form and execute some plan adapted to the 
accomplishment of that particular object. An 
ambitious man of talents will, we are sure, fix 
his desires on some particular situation of emi- 
nence, and will form some scheme fitted for its at- 
tainment. Ifan intimate and judicious friend of 
Julius Cesar had retired to some distant corner 
of the world, before the commencement of the 
political career of that wonderful man, and had 
there received an accurate history of every cir- 
cumstance of his conduct, how would he have 
received it? He would certainly have believed it; 
and not merely because he knew that Cesar 
was ambitious, but also because he could discern 
that every step of his progress, as recorded in the 
history, was adapted with admirable intelligence 
to accomplish the object of his ambition. His 
belief of the history, therefore, would rest on two 
considerations,—first, that the object attributed 
by it to Caesar corresponded with the general 
principle under which he had classed the moral 
character of Cesar; and, secondly, that there was 


9 : 


evident, through the course of the history, a per- 
fect adaptation of means to an end. He would 
have believed just on the same principle that 
compelled Archimedes to believe the history of 
the steam-boat. ' 

In all these processes of reasoning, we have 
examples of conviction, upon an evidence which 
is, most strictly speaking, internal,—an evidence 
altogether independent of our confidence in the 
veracity of the narrator of the facts. 

Surely, then, in a system which purports to be 
a revelation from heaven, and to contain a bis- 
tory of God’s dealings with men, and to develop 
truths with regard to the moral government of 
the universe, the knowledge and belief of which 
will lead to happiness here and hereafter, we 
may expect to find (if its pretensions are well 
founded) an evidence for its truth, which shall 
be independent of all external testimony. But 
what are the precise principles on which the 
internal evidence for or against a Divine revela- 
tion of religion must rest? We can not have any 
internal evidence on a subject which is in all its 
parts and bearings and relations entirely new to 
us; because, in truth, the internal evidence de- 
pends solely on our knowledge that certain 
causes are followed by certain effects: There- 
fore, if a new train of causes and effects per- 
fectly different from any thing which we have 
before known, be presented to us, all our notions 


10 


of probability, all our anticipations of results, and 
ll our references to causes, by which we are 
accustomed to judge of theories and histories, be- 
come utterly useless. In the hypothetical case 
of Archimedes deciding on the story of the 
steam-boat, the judgment which he may be sup- 
posed to have given was grounded on his belief 
that similar causes would produce similar effects, 
and on his experience that the causes which the 
traveller specified were actually followed in na- 
ture by the effects which he specified. The 
philosopher had never seen this particular com- 
bination of causes; but he knew each distinct 
cause, with its distinct train of consequents; and 
thus he anticipated the general result of the com- 
bination. | 
So also the credit attached to the narrative of 
Cesar’s exploits, by his distant friend, was 
grounded on the conviction that ambition would 
lead Cesar to aim at empire, and on the know- 
ledge that this object could not be attained ex- 
cept by that course which Cesar pursued. Al- 
though the circumstances were new, he could 
almost have predicted, from analogy, that, 
whether the design proved finally successful or 
not, Cesar would certainly form the design, and 
construct some such plan for its accomplish- 
ment, 
Our acquaintance, then, with certain causes 
as necessarily connected with certain effects, and 


I} 


our intuitive conviction that this same connection 
will always subsist between these causes and 
effects, form the basis of all our just anticipations 
for the future, and of all our notions of proba- 
bility and internal evidence, with regard to the 
systems or histories, both physical and moral, 
which may be presented to us. 

If, then, the subject-matter of Divine revela- 
tion be entirely new to us, we can not possibly 
have any ground on which we may rest our 
judgment as to its probability. But is this the 
case with that system of religion which is called 
Christianity? Is the object which it has in view 
an entirely new object? Is the moral mechan- 
ism which it employs for the accomplishment of 
that object, different in kind from that moral 
mechanism which we ourselves set to work every 
day upon our fellow-creatures whose conduct we 
wish to influence in some particular direction, or 
from that by which we feel ourselves to be led 
in the ordinary course of providence? Is the 
character of the Great Being to whose inspiration 
this system is ascribed, and whose actions are re- 
corded by it, entirely unknown to us, except 
through the medium of this revelation? Far 
from it. Like Archimedes in the case which I 
have supposed; we have never before seen this 
particular combination of causes brought to bear 
on this particular combination of results; but we 
are acquainted with each particular cause, and 


12 


we can trace its distinct train of consequents; and 
thus we can understand the relation between the 
whole of the combined causes and the whole of 
the combined results. | 

The first faint outline of Christianity presents 
to us a view of God operating on the characters 
of men through a manifestation of his own cha- 
racter, in order that, by leading them to partici- 
pate in some measure of his moral likeness, they 
may also in some measure participate of his hap- 
piness. Every man who believes in the exist- 
ence of a Supreme Moral Governor, and has 
considered the relations in which ‘this belief 
places him, must have formed to himself some 
scheme of religion analogous to that which I have 
described. The indications of the divine cha- 
racter, in nature, and providence, and conscience, 
were surely given to direct and instruct us in our 
relations to God and his creatures. The indi- 
cations of his kindness have a tendency to attract 
our gratitude, and the indications of his disap- 
probation to check aud alarm us. We infer 
that his own character truly embodies all those 
qualities whieh he approves, and is perfectly free 
from all which he condemns. The man who 
adopts this scheme of natural religion, which, 
though deficient in point of practical influence 
over the human mind, as shall be afterwards ex- 
plained, is yet true,—and who has learned from 
experience to refer actions to their moral causes, 


18 


—is in possession of all the elementary princi- 
ples which qualify him to judge of the internal 
evidence of Christianity. He can judge of 
Christianity as the rude ship-carpenter of a bar- 
barous age could judge of a British ship of the 
line, or as the scientific anatomist of the eye 
could judge of a telescope which he had never 
seen before, 

He who holds this scheme of natural religion, 
will believe in its truth (and I conceive justly), 
because it urges him to what is good, deters nim 
from what is evil, and coincides generally with 
all that he feels and observes; and this very be- 
lief which he holds on these grounds, will natu- 
rally lead him to believe in the truth of another 
scheme which tends directly to the same moral 
object, but much more specifically and power- 
fully, and coincides much more minutely with 
his feelings and observations, 

The perfect moral tendency of its doctrines, is 
a ground on which the Bible often rests its plea 
of authenticity and importance. Whatever prin- 
ciple of belief tends to promote real moral per- 
fection, possesses in some degree the quality of 
truth. By moral perfection, I mean the per- 
ception of what is right, followed by the love of 
it and the doing of it. This quality, therefore, 
necessarily implies a true view of the relations in 
which we stand to all the beings with whom we 
are connected. In this sense, Pope’s famous 


14 


line is perfectly just,—‘* His (faith) can’t be 
wrong, whose life is in the right.” But it is evi- 
dent, that a man may be a very useful member 
of this world’s society, without ever thinking of 
the true relation in which he stands to the beings 
about him. Prudence, honourable feelings, and 
instinctive good-nature, may insure to any man, 
in ordinary times, an excellent reputation. But 
the scene of our present contemplation lies in the 
spiritual universe of God, and the character that 
we speak of must be adapted to that society. 
We can not but believe that true moral perfec- 
tion contains the elements of happiness in that 
higher state; and therefore we can not but believe: 
that that view of our moral relations, and of the 
beings to whom we are so related, which leads 
to this moral perfection, must be the true view. 
But if the attainment of this character be the 
important object, why lay so much stress upon 
-any particular view? The reason is obvious: 
We can not, according to the constitution of our 
nature, induce upon our minds any particular 
state of moral feeling without an adequate cause. 
We can not feel anger, or love, or hatred, or fear, 
by simply endeavouring so to feel. In order to 
have the feeling, we must have some object 
present to our minds which will naturally excite 
the feeling, Therefore, as moral perfection con- 
sists of a combination of moral feelings (leading 
to correspondent action), it can only have place 


15 


in a mind which is under the impression or has 
a present view of those objects which naturally 
produce that combination of feelings. 

The object of this Dissertation is to analyse 
the component parts of the Christian scheme of 
doctrine, with reference to its bearings both on 
the character of God and on the character of man; 
and to demonstrate, that its facts not only present 
an expressive exhibition of all the moral qualities 
which can be conceived to reside in the Divine 
mind, but also contain all those objects which 
have a natural tendency to excite and suggest in 
the human mind that combination of moral feel- 
ings which has been termed moral perfection, 
We shall thus arrive at a conclusion with regard 
to the facts of revelation, analogous to that at 
which Archimedes arrived with regard to the 
narrative of the traveller,—viz. a conviction that 
they contain a general truth in relation to the 
characters both of God and man; and that there- 
fore the Apostles must either have witnessed 
them, as they assert, or they must have been the 
most marvellous philosophers that the world ever 
saw. Their system is true in the nature of 
things, even were they proved to be impostors. 

When God, through his prophet Jeremiah, re- 
futes the pretensions of the false teachers of that 
day, he says,—~‘¢ If they bad stood in my coun- 
sel, and had caused my people to hear my words, 
then they should have turned them from their 


16 


evil way, and from the evil of their doings.” 
This moral tendency of its doctrines, then, is the 
evidence which the book itself appeals to for the 
proof of its authenticity; and surely it is no more 
than justice, that this evidence should be can- 
didly examined. This is an evidence, also, on 
which the apostle Paul frequently rests the whole 
weight of the gospel. 

According to this theory of the mode in which 
a rational judgment of the truth and excellence 
of a religion may be formed, it is not enough to 
show, in proof of its authenticity, that the facts 
which it affirms concerning the dealings of God 
with his creatures, do exhibit his moral perfec- 
tions in the highest degree; it must also be shown, 
that these facts, when present to the mind of 
man, do naturally, according to the constitution 
of his being, tend to excite and suggest that com- 
bination of feelings which constitutes his moral 
perfection. But when we read a history which 
authoritatively claims to be an exhibition of the 
character of God in his dealings with men,—if 
we find in it that which fills and overflows our 
most dilated conceptions of moral worth and 
loveliness in the Supreme Being, and at the same 
time feel that it is triumphant in every appeal 
that it makes to our consciences, in its state- 
ments of the obliquity and corruption of our own 
hearts,—and if our reason farther discovers a 
system of powerful moral stimulants, embodied 


yl! 


i7 


in the facts of this history, which necessarily 
tend to produce in the mind a resemblance to 
that high character which is there portrayed,—if 
we discern that the spirit of this history gives 
peace to the conscience by the very exhibition 
which quickens its sensibility—that it dispels the 
terrors of guilt by the very fact which associates 
sin with the full loathing of the heart—that it 
combines in one wondrous and consistent whole 
our most fearful forebodings and our most splen- 
did anticipations for futurity—that it inspires a 
pure and elevated and joyful hope for eternity, 
by those very declarations which attach a deeper 
and more interesting obligation to the discharge 
of the minutest part of human duty,—if we see 
that the object of all its tendencies is the per- 
fection of moral happiness, and that these ten- 
dencies are naturally connected with the belief 
of its narration,——if we see all this in the gospel, 
we may then say that our own eyes have seen its 
truth, and that we need no other testimony: We 
may then well believe that God has been pleased, 
in pity to our wretchedness, and in condescen- 
sion to our feebleness, to clothe the eternal laws 
which regulate his spiritual government, in such 
a form as may be palpable to our conceptions, 
and adapted to the urgency of our necessities, 
This theory of internal evidence, though 
founded on analogy, is yet essentially different 
in almost all respects from that view of the sub- 
B2 


18 


ject which Bishop Butler has given, in his most 
valuable and philosophical work on the analog 
between natural and revealed religion. His de- 
sign was to answer objections against revealed 
religion, arising out of the difficulties connected 
with many of its doctrines, by showing that pre- 
cisely the same difficulties occur in natural reli- 
gion and in the ordinary course of providence. 
This argument converts even the difficulties of 
revelation into evidences of its genuineness; be- 
cause it employs them to establish the identity 
of the Author of Revelation and the Author of 
Nature. My object is quite different. {1 mean 
to show that there is an intelligible and necessa- 
ry connection between the doctrinal facts of re- 
velation and the character of God (as deduced 
from natural religion), in the same way as there 
is an intelligible and necessary connection be- 
tween the character of a man and his most cha- 
racteristic actions; and farther, that the belief of 
these doctrinal facts has an intelligible and ne- 
cessary tendency to produce the Christian cha- 
racter, in the same way that the belief of danger 
has an intelligible and necessary tendency to 
produce fear. 

Perhaps it may appear to some minds, that al- 
though all this should be admitted, little or no 
weight has been added to the evidence for the 
truth of revelation, These persons have been in 
the habit of thinking that the miraculous inspira- 


19 


tion of the Scriptures is the sole point of impor- 
tance: whereas the inspiration, when demonstra- 
ted, is no more than an evidence for the truth of 
that system which is communicated through this 
channel. If the Christian system be true, it 
would have been so although it had never been 
miraculously revealed to men. This principle, 
at least, is completely recognised with regard to 
the moral precepts. The duties of justice and 
benevolence are acknowledged to be realities al- 
together independent of the enforcement of any 
inspired revelation. The character of God is 
Just as immutable, and as independent of any in- 
spired revelation, as these duties; and so also are 
the acts of government proceeding from this cha- 
racter. We can not have stronger evidence for 
any truth whatever, than that which we have for 
the reality of moral obligations. Upon this basis 
has been reared the system of natural religion as 
far as relates to the moral character of God, by 
simply clothing the Supreme Being with all the 
moral excellencies of human nature in an infinite 
degree. A system of religion which is opposed 
to these moral obligations, is opposed also to right 
reason, This sense of moral obligation, then, 
which is the standard to which reason instructs 
man to adjust his system of natural religion, con- 
tinues to be the test by which he ought to try all 
pretensions to divine revelation. If the actions 
ascribed to God by any system of religion pre- 


™— 


20 


sent a view of the divine character which Is at 
variance with the the idea of moral perfection, 
we have no reason to believe that these are real- 
ly the actions of God. But if, on the contrary, 
they have a strong and distinct tendency to ele- 
vate and dilate our notions of goodness, and are 
in perfect harmony with these notions, we have 
reason to believe that they may be the actions of 
God; because they are intimately connected with 
those moral convictions which form the first prin- 
ciples of all our reasonings on this subject. This, 
then, is the first reasonable test of the truth of a 
religion—that it should coincide with the moral 
constitution of the human mind. But, secondly, 
we know, that, independently of all moral rea- 
soning or consideration, our minds, by their na- 
tural constitution, are liable to receive certain 
impressions from certain objects when present to 
them. Thus, without any exercise of the moral 
judgment, tbey are liable to the impressions of 
Jove and hatred, and fear and hope, when cer- 
tain corresponding objects are presented to them. 
And it is evident that the moral character is de- 
termined by the habitual direction which is given 
to these affections. Now if the actions attributed 
to God by any system of religion, be really such 
objects, as when present to the mind, do not stir 
the affections at all, that religion can not influ- 
ence the character, and is therefore utterly use- 
less: if they be such as do indeed rouse the af- 


21 


fections, but at the same time give thema wrong 
direction, that religion is worse than useless—it 
is pernicious: but if they can be shown to be such 
as have a necessary tendency to excite these natu- 
ral emotions on the behalf of goodness, and to 
draw the current of our affections and wills into 
this moral channel, we are entitled to draw ano- 
ther argument, from this circumstance in favour 
of the truth of that religion; because we may pre- 
sume that God would suit his communications to 


_ the capacities and instincts of his creatures. The 


Me 


Ri 


second test, then, of the truth of a religion, is— 
that it should coincide with the physical consti- 
tution of the human mind, But, farther, there 
is much moral evil and much misery in the world. 
There are many bad passions in the mind; and 
there is a series of events continually. going for- 
ward, which tend to excite a great variety of feel- 
ings. Now, a religion has one of the characters 
of truth, when it is accommodated to all these 
circumstances,—when it offers pardon without 
lowering the standard of moral duty; when its 
principles convert the varied events into oppor- 
tunities of growing in conformity to God, and of 
acquiring the character of happiness; and when 
it tempers the elevation of prosperity, and the de- 
pression of adversity. The third test, then, of 


, the truth of a religion, is,—that it should coincide 


t 


: 
‘ 


_ with the circumstances in which man is found in 
_ this world. It may be said that a religion in 


22 


which these three conditions meet, rests upon the 
most indisputable axioms of the science of human 
nature. All these conditions can be proved to 
meet in the religion of the Bible; and the wide 
divergence from them which is so palpable in all 
other religious systems, philosophical as well as 
popular, which have come to our knowledge, is 
a very strong argument for the Divine inspiration 
of the Bible, especially when the artless simplici- 
ty of its manner, and the circumstances of the 
country in which it was written, are taken into 
consideration. 

It may be proper to remark, that the acts at- 
tributed to the Divine government are usually 
termed “ doctrines,” to distinguish them from 
the moral precepts of a religion. 

When I make use of the terms ‘ manifesta- 
tion” and ‘ exhibition,”? which I shall have fre- 
quent occasion to do in the course of the follow- 
ing observations, I am very far from meaning any 
thing like a mere semblance of action without 
the substance. In fact, nothing can be a true 
manifestation of the Divine character, which is 
not, at the same time, a direct and necessary re- 
sult of the Divine principles, and a true narration 
of the Divine conduct, But these terms suit best 
with the leading idea which I wish to explain,— 
viz. that the facts of revelation are developments 
of the moral principles of the Deity, and carry an 
influential address to the feelings of man, The 


23 


whole of their importance, indeed, hinges upon 
their being a reality; and it is the truth of this re- 
ality which is demonstrated by their holy consis- 
tency with the character of their Author, and 
their sanctifying applicability to the hearts of his 
creatures. I may observe also, that, in the illus- 
trations which are introduced, I have aimed ra- 
ther at a broad and general resemblance than at a 
minute coincidence in all particulars, which is 
perhaps not attainable in any comparison be- 
tween earthly things and heavealy. 

I. As itis a matter of the very highest impor- 
tance in the study of religion, to be fully satisfied 
that there is areal connection between happiness 
and the knowledge and love of God, I have com- 
menced these remarks by explaining the nature 
of this connection. 1 have bere endeavoured to 
show, that the object of a true religion must be 
to present to the minds of men such a view of the 
character of their great Governor, as may not only 
enable them to comprehend the principles of his 
government, but may also attract their affections 
into a conformity with them. 

If, [have made some observations on the mode 
in which natural religion exhibits the Divine 
character, and in which it appeals to the human 
understanding and feelings. And here I have 
remarked the great advantage which a general 
principle of morality possesses in its appeals to 
minds constituted like ours, when it comes forth 


24 


to us in the shape of an intelligible and palpable 
action, beyond what it possesses in its abstract 
form. 

III. I have attempted to show that Christian- 
ity possesses this advantage in the highest degree; 
that its facts are nothing more than the abstract 
principles of natural religion, embodied in per- 
spicuity and efficiency; and that these facts not 
only give a lively representation of the perfect 
character of God, but also contain in themselves 
the strength of the most irresistible moral argu- 
ments that one man could address to another on 
any buman interests. 

IV. Ihave endeavoured to analyse some of the 
causes of the general indifference to or rejection 
of real Christianity, and to point out the sources 
of the multiplied mistakes which are made with 
regard to its nature, I have here made some 
observations on the indisposition of the human 
mind to attend to an argument which opposes any 
favourite inclination; on the opposition of Christi- 
anity to the prevailing current of the human cha- 
racter; and on the bad effects arising from the 
common practice of deriving our notions of re- 
ligion rather from the compositions of men than 
from the Bible. Infidels are not in general ac- 
quainted, through the Bible itself, with the sys- 
tem of revelation; and therefore they are inacces- 
sible to that evidence for it which arises out of 
the discovery that its doctrinal facts all tally ex- 


actly with the characters which its precepts incul- 
cate. I have here also illustrated this coincidence 
between the doctrines and the precepts of the 
Bible in several particulars. If the Christian 
character is the character of true and immortal 
happiness, the system must be true which neces- 
sarily leads to that character, 

V. I have endeavoured to show the need that 
men have for some system of spiritual renovation; 
and I have inferred from the preceding argument, 
that no such system could be really efficient, un- 
less it resembled Christianity in its structure and 
mode of enforcement, 

VI. [have shown the connection between the 
external and internal evidence for revelation, 


ON THE 


INTERNAL EVIDENCE 


FOR THE TRUTH OF 


REVEALED RELIGION. 


SECTION I. 


Wuen it is said that happiness is necessarily 
and exclusively connected with a resemblance to 
the Divine character, it is evident that the word 
‘‘ happiness” must be understood in a restricted 
sense. It can not be denied, that many vicious 
men enjoy much gratification through life; nor 
ean it even be denied, that this gratification is 
derived in a great measure from their very vices. 
This fact is, no doubt, very perplexing, as every 
question must be which is connected with the 
origin of evil: But still, it is no more perplexing 
than the origin of evil, or than the hypothesis 
that our present life is a state of trial and disci- 
pline. ‘Temptation to evil, evidently implies a 


27 


seuse Of gratification proceeding from evil; and 
evil could not have existed without this sense of 
gratification connected with it. So, also, this 
life could not be a state of trial and discipline in 
good, unless there were some inducement or 
temptation to evil,—that is, unless there were 
some sense of gratification attending evil. It 
probably does not lie within the compass of hu- 
man faculties to give a completely satisfactory 
answer to these questions; whilst yet it may be 
rationally maintained, that if there is a propriety 
in this life being a state of discipline, there must 
also be a propriety in sin being connected with a 
sense of gratification. But then, may not this 
vicious gratification be extended through eternity, 
as well as through a year or an hour? I can not 
see any direct impossibility in this supposition, 
on natural principles; and yet I feel that the 
assertion of it sounds very much like the contra- 
diction of an intuitive truth. 

There is a great difference between the hap- 
piness enjoyed with the approbation of con- 
science, and that which is felt without it or 
‘against it. When the conscience is very sensi- 
tive, the gratification arising from vice can not 
be very great: The natural process, therefore, 
by which such gratification is obtained or height- 
ened, is by lulling or deadening the conscience. 
This is accomplished by habitually turning the 
attention from the distinction of good and evil, 


28 


and directing it to the circumstances which con- 
stitute vicious gratification. » 

The testimony of conscience is that verdict 
which every man returns for or against himself 
upon the question, whether his moral character 
has kept pace with his moral judgment? This ‘ 
verdict. will therefore be, in relation to absolute 
moral truth, correct or incorrect, in proportion to 
the degree of illumination possessed by the moral 
judgment; and the feeling of remorse will be 
more or less painful, according to the inequality 
which subsists between the judgment and the 
character. Whep a man, therefore, by dint of 
perseverance, has brought his judgment down to 
the level of his character, and has trained his rea- 
son to call evil good and good evil, he has gained 
a victory over conscience, and expelled remorse. 
If he could maintain this advantage through his 
whole existence, his conduct would admit of a 
most rational justification. But then, his peace 
is built solely on the darkness of his moral judg- 
ment; and therefore, all that is necessary in or- 
der to make him miserable, and to stir up a civil 
war within his breast, would be to throw such a 
strong and indubious light on the perfect cha- 
racter of goodness, as might extort from him an 
acknowledgment of its excellency, and force him 
to contrast with it his own past history and pre- 
sent condition. Whilst his mental eye is held in 
fascination by this glorious vision, he can not but 


29 


feel the anguish of remorse; he can not but feel 
that he is at fearful strife with some mighty and 
mysterious being, whose power has compelled 
even his own heart to execute vengeance on him; 
nor can he hide from himself the loathsomeness 
and pollution of that spiritual pestilence, which 
has poisoned every organ of his moral constitu- 
tion. He can hope to escape from this wretch- 
edness, only by withdrawing his gaze from the 
appalling brightness; and, in this world, such an 
attempt can generally be made with success. 
But suppose him to be placed in such circum- 
stances that there should be no retreat—no diver- 
sity of objects which might divert or divide his 
attention—and that, wherever he turned, he was 
met and fairly confronted by this threatening 
Spirit of Goodness,—it is impossible that he 
could have any respite from misery, except in a 
respite from existence. If this should be the 
state of things in the next world, we may form 
some conception of the union there between vice 
and misery. 

Whilst we stand at a distance from a furnace, 
the effect of the heat on our bodies gives us little 
uneasiness; but, as we approach it, the natural 
opposition manifests itself, and the pain is in- 
creased hy every step that we advance. The 
complicated system of this world’s business and 
events, forms, as it were, a veil before our eyes, 
and interposes a kind of moral distance between 

c2 


30 


us and our God, through which the radiance of 
his character shines but indistinctly, so that we 
can withhold our attention from it if we will: 
The opposition which exists between his perfect 
holiness and our corrupt propensities, does not 
force itself upon us at every step: His views and 
purposes may run contrary to ours; but as they 
do not often meet us in the form of a direct and 
personal encounter, we contrive to ward off the 
conviction that we are at hostility with the Lord 
of the Universe, and think that we may enjoy 
ourselves in the intervals of these much-dreaded 
visitations, without feeling the necessity of bring- 
ing our habits into a perfect conformity with his. 
But when death removes this veil, by dissolving 
our connection with this world and its works, we 
may be brought into a closer and more percepti- 
ble contact with Him who is of purer eyes than 
to behold iniquity. In that spiritual world, we 
may suppose, that each event, even the minutest 
part of the whole system of government, will bear 
such an unequivocal stamp of the Divine cha- 
racter, that. an intelligent being, of opposite 
views and feelings, will at every moment feel it- 
self gailed and thwarted and borne down by the 
direct and overwhelming encounter of this all- 
pervading and almighty mind. And here it should 
be renfembered, that the Divine government 
does not, iike human authority, skim the surface, 
nor content itself with an unresisting exterior and 


31 


professions of submission; but comes close to the 
thoughts, and carries its summons to the affec- 
tions and the will, and penetrates to those re- 
cesses of ‘the soul, where, whilst we are in this 
world, we often take a pride and a pleasure in 
fostering the unyielding sentiments of hatred and 
contempt, even towards that superiority of force 
which has subdued and fettered and silenced us. 

The man who believes in revelation, will, of 
course, receive this view as the truth of God; 
and even the unbeliever in revelation, if he ad- 
mits the existence of an almighty Being of a per- 
fect moral character, and if he see no unlikeli- 
hood in the supposition that the mixture of good 
and evil, and the process of moral discipline con- 
nected with it, are to cease with this stage of our 
being, even he can not but feel that there is a 
strong probability in favour of such an anticipa- 
tion. | 

We see, then, how vicious men may be happy 
to a certain degree in this world, and yet be mi- 
serable in the next, without supposing any very 
great alteration in the general system of God’s 
government, and without taking into account any 
thing like positive infliction as the cause of their 
misery. And it may be observed, ‘hat this view 
gives to vice a form and an extent and a power 
very different from what is generally ascribed to 
it amongst men. We are here conversant chiefly 
about externals; and theretore the name of vice 


32 


is more commonly applied to external conduct 
than to internal character. But, in the world of 
spirits, it is not so. There, a dissonance in prin- 
ciple and object from the Father of Spirits, con- 
stitutes vice, and is identified with unhappiness. 
So that a man who has here passed a useful and 
dignified life, upon principles different from those 
of the Divine character, must, when under the 
direct action of that character, feel a want of 
adjustment and an opposition which can not but 
mar or exclude happiness. Thus, also, the ef- 
fects of pride, of vanity, or of selfishness, when 
combined with prudence, may often be most 
beneficial in the world; and vet, if these princi- 
ples are in opposition to God’s character, they 
must disqualify the minds in which they reign 
for participating in the joys of heaven. The 
joys of heaven are described in Scripture to con- 
sist in a resemblance to God, or in a cheerful 
and sympatbising submission to his will; and as 
man naturally follows the impulse of his own 
propensities, without reference to the will of 
God, it is evident that a radical change of prin- 
ciple is necessary, in order to capacitate him for 
that happiness, 

It was to produce this necessary and salutary 
ehange, that the gospel was sent from Heaven. 
It bears upon it the character of God, _ It is not, 
therefore, to be wondered at, that those whose 
principles are opposed to that character, should 
also be opposed to the gospel. 


$3 


Christianity thus anticipates the discoveries of 
death: It removes the veil which hides God from 
our sight; it brings the system of the spiritual 
world to act upon our consciences; it presents 
us with a specimen of God’s higher and interior 
government; it gives us a nearer view of his cha- 
racter in its true proportions, and thus marks 
out to us the points in which we differ from him; 
it condemns with his authority; it smiles and in- 
vites with his uncompromising purity. The man 
who dislikes all this, will reject Christianity, 
and replace the veil, and endeavour to forget the 
awful secrets which it conceals; and may per- 
haps be only at Jast roused from his delusion, by 
finding himself face to face before the God whose 
warnings he had neglected, and whose offers of 
friendship he had disregarded,—offers which, 
had they been accepted, would have brought his 
will into concord with that sovereign will which 
rules the universe, and fitted him to take a joy- 
ful and sympathising interest in every part of tie 
Divine administration. 

Of the attractive and overcoming loveliness of 
the character of God, as revealed in his word, and 
of the invitations which he makes to sinners, I 
shall speak afterwards; but in the mean time, I 
would draw the attention of the reader to the 
serious consideration of the fact, that a dissonance 
in principle from the Ruler of the universe, can 
not but be connected with some degree of un- 


34 


happiness. Although I believe that few minds 
wil] feel much difficulty in acquiescing in some 
measure in the truth of this remark, and although 
there is no intricacy in the reasoning connected 
with it, yet as distinct conceptions on this subject 
are of prime importance in all views of religion, I 
shall illustrate it by an analogy drawn from the 
more palpable and better understood affairs of 
this material world, with which we are surround- 
ed. We may find striking examples to this 
purpose ina period of English history, which 
was distinguished above all others for the re- 
markable contrasts which it exhibited in public 
sentiment and principle amongst the different 
classes of the nation, and is therefore peculiarly 
fitted for elucidating the effects produced on hap- 
piness, by an opposition in principle between the 
ruling power and a part of its subjects. 

It is easy to imagine the stern and composed 
satisfaction with which a thorough partisan of 
Cromwell would contemplate the rigid and for- 
mal solemnity which overspread the Government 
and people of England during the Protectorship. 
But whence did this satisfaction arise? Certain- 
tainly from that concord which subsisted be- 
tween his own habsts and those of the ruling power. 
His views and inclinations coincided at all points 
with those of the Government; and therefore 
every measure of administration was a source of 
gratification to him, because it was in fact an 


c* 
“eye 


% 


35 


expression of his own will. He was thus in a 
state of political happiness; and had there been 
no higher government than the Commonwealth, 
through the universe, or through eternity, he must 
have been perfectly and permanently happy. Now, 
let us carry forward this same individual to the 
days of Charles the Second, and place bim in the 
near neighbourhood of that gay and dissolute court. 
We can in this situation suppose him moving 
about with a double measure of gloom in his coun- 
tenance, and with a heart imbittered by the gene- 
ral mirth, and irritated by the continual encoun- 
ter of character and opinions and habits directly 
opposed to his own. He retires to a distance 
from the seat of Government, and endeavours to 
hide himself from these painful conflicts in ‘the 
bosom of his family. ‘There the arrangements 
are all conducted according to his own principles 
and his own taste; and he enjoys a tolerable 
state of happiness, though liable to occasional 
interruptions from public news, from whispers 
that he is to be apprehended on suspicion of 
treason, from the intrusion of Government offli- 
cers, and from a want of thorough sympathy on 
political subjects even perhaps in the members 
of his own domestic circle. All at once, his quiet 
is destroyed by an order from court to leave his 
seclusion, and reside in the metropolis, that he 
may be more immediately under the eye of Go- 
vernment. Here again he is brought face to face 


36 


with all that he hates and despises. His aver- 
sion-is increased by a sense of bis inability to re- 
sist; and he learns even to cherish the feeling and 
habit of misery as the only testimony that his 
soul is unsubdued. He is politically miserable. 
I have given this sketch as an illustration of those 
natural laws which make our happiaess depend- 
ent on oursympathy with a power which over- 
rules us; and also as an example of the form and 
the precariousness of that process by which we 
can in some circumstances contract our horizon, 
as it were, and shut out from our view those 
things which give us pain, and withdraw our- 
selves from the encounter of those principles 
which are in opposition to our own. In the field 
of this world, there are many divisions and sub- 
divisions, separated by strong barriers from each 
other, and acknowledging different authorities, 
or the same authority perhaps in different de- 
grees. There are so many shelters to which men 
may betake themselves, when pursued by the jus- 
tice or injustice of their fellow-creatures. But 
whilst we continue within the scope of one au- 
thority, although we may finda temporary asylum 
against its enmity in a narrower circle or more 
private society, we are continually liable to be 
confronted by it, and dragged from our hiding- 
place; and must therefore, from the nature of 
things, be in some measure dependent on it for 
our happiness. 


$7 


Whenever the material world and its concerns 
are made use of to illustrate the concerns of the 
mind and of the invisible world, it is of great 
importance to preserve in lively recollection the 
essential difference which separates the two sub- 
jects. The one embraces outward actions ex- 
clusively; whilst the prominent feature in the 
other is the principle from which the actions 
spring. Thus, in the example which has just 
been given, we can easily suppose that Crom- 
well’s followers were actuated by a great variety 
of motives, and that the solemnity of the Com- 
monwealth might captivate different minds on 
very different principles. Some pious people 
might have liked it, from having associated it in 
their minds with true religion; some from the fa- 
natical idea, that this outward form would atone 
for more secret sins; some, from its mixture with 
republican sturdiness; and some, from a hatred 
of Popery or of the Stuart family. Now, these 
principles are all very different in their nature, 
although their external results might in some 
particulars resemble each other; and therefore 
the happiness of the citizens did not proceed 
from an actual sympathy of principle with the 
Government, but from a coincidence in the effects 
of their principles: And if the Government had 
had cognizance and control of the mind as well 
as the body, then those alone could have been 
happy, or could have been considered as good 

D 


38 


citizens, who liked that solemn system of things 
precisely on the same principles with the Govern- 
ment; and the collision of opposite principle 
would in this case have been as violent as the 
collision of external conduct actually was. In 
morals, an action does not mean an effect simply, 
but a principle carried into exercise; and there- 
fore, in a government of minds, any effect pro- 
duced by pride, for instance, however beneficial 
to the public, would get the name of a proud ac- 
tion, and would be condemned by a judge who 
disapproved of pride. Man can not see into the 
heart; and therefore he is obliged to conjecture 
or guess at principles by their effects; but yet his 
judgment is always determined by the nature of 
the principle to which he ascribes the effects, 
Supposing, then, that we were under such a su- 
pernaturally gifted government, ‘and that this 
government was so strong that the idea of re- 
sisting or escaping it involved an absurdity,—it 
would evidently become a matter of the very 
highest importance, to make ourselves accurately 
acquainted with its principles, and to accommo- 
date our own to them; because, till this were ac- 
complished, we could never enjoy tranquillity, 
but must continually suffer the uneasiness of be- 
ing reluctantly borne down by the current of a 
will more powerful than our own. This object, 
however, would be attended by considerable dif- 
ficulty. In the first place, it could not be very 


39 


easy to discover the precise principles of the ad- 
ministration: Almost any single act might pro- 
ceed from a great variety of principles; and it 
would therefore require a long observation and 
induction of facts, in order to arrive at a satis- 
factory conclusion. And, in the second place, 
after we had discovered those principles, we 
might chance to find that they were in direct op- 
position to our own. 

In these circumstances, it would be most desi- 
rable that the Government should, for the infor- 
mation of the people, embody in one interesting 
train of action the whole of the principles of its 
Administration; so that an unequivocal and dis- 
tinet idea of these principles might be conveyed, 
by the narrative, to any one who would carefully 
consider its purport. After Government had done 
this, it would evidently be the interest and the 
duty of all the subjects to dwell much upon the 
history thus communicated to them, in order that 
they might in this way familiarise their minds to 
the principles developed in it, and teach their 
own thoughts to run in the same channel, and 
interest their affections and feelivgs in it as much 
as possible. The people would engage in this 
_ with greater or less earnestness, according to the 
strength or weakness of the conviction which 
each one had as to the reality of the connection 
which subsisted between happiness and the ac- 
complishment of this object, and also in propor- 


40 


tion to their persuasion that this history was a 
true representation of the character of the Govern- 
ment. Approbation and affection could alone 
constitute the necessary adjustment: Fear might 
urge to the prosecution of the object, but the 
complete harmony of the will is the result of a 
more generous principle. If we suppose, farther, 
that this complete harmony of sentiment is one 
of the great objects of Government, then a coin- 
cidence on the part of the subjects, unless con- 
nected with a distinct intention to coincide, could 
not contain in itself the elements of a complete 
harmony, because it did not embrace this great 
object of the Government. 


41 


SECTION IL. 


I wave made these remarks for the purpose of 
illustrating the object of the Christian revelation, 
and of explaining the necessity of believing its 
announcement, in order to the full accomplish- 
ment of that object in each individual case. 
The object of Christianity is to bring the charac- 
ter of man into harmony with that of God. To 
this end, it is evidently necessary that a just idea 
of the Divine character should be formed, the 
works of creation, the arrangements of provi- 
cence, and the testimony of conscience, are, if 
thoroughly weighed, sufficient to give this idea: 
But men are in general so much occupied by the 
works, that they forget their great Author; and 
their characters are so opposed to his, that they 
turn away their eyes from the contemplation of 
that purity which condemns them, And even 
in the most favourable cases, the moral efficiency 
of the idea presented by these natural lights, is 
much hindered and weakened by the abstract- 
ness and vagueness of its form. 

When we look into creation or providence, for 
the indications of God’s character, we are struck 

D2 


Az 


with the mixture of appearances which present 
themselves. We see on one side, life, health, 
happiness; and on the other, death, disease, pain, 
misery. The first class furnishes us with argu- 
ments for the goodness of God; but what are we 
to make of the opposite facts? The theory on 
this subject which is attended with fewest diffi- 
culties, is founded on two suppositions,—first, 
That moral good is necessary to permanent hap- 
piness; and second, That misery is the result of 
moral evil, and was appointed by the Author of 
Nature as its check and punishment. This 
‘theory throws some light on the character both of 
God and of man. © It represents God not merely 
as generally solicitous for the happiness of men, 
but as solicitous to lead them to happiness through 
the medium of a certain moral character, which 
is the object of his exclusive approbation; and it 
represents man as very sinful, by holding forth the 
mass of natural evil in the world as a sort of 
measure of his moral deficiency; and suggests 
that the disease must be indeed virulent, when so 
strong a medicine is necessary. The fact, how- 
ever, that the greatest natural evil does not always 
fall where moral evil is most conspicuous, whilst 
it gives rise to the idea of a future state, does 
nevertheless obscure, in some degree, our ideas 
of the Divine character. Our notion of the good- 
ness of God, according to natural religion, does 


45 


not then arise so much from the knowledge of 
any one distinct unequivocal manifestation of 
that quality, as from a general comparison ‘of 
many facts, which, when combined, lead to this 
conclusion. This remark applies also to our 
notion of the Divine holiness, or God’s exclusive 
approbation of one particular character; though 
not to the same extent,—because conscience 
comes much more directly to the point here than 
reason does in the other case. The excitements 
and motives arising out of such a comparison as 
has been described, can not be nearly so vivid or 
influential as those which spring from the belief 
of a simple and unequivocal fact which recurs to 
us without effort, and unfolds. its instruction 
without obscurity, and which holds out to us an 
unvarying standard, by which we may at all 
times judge of the thoughts and intentions of God 
in his dealings with men. Natural theology, 
therefore, becomes almost necessarily rather a 
subject of metaphysical speculation than a system 
of practical principles. It marks the distinctions 
of right and wrong; but it does not efficiently at- 
tach our love to what is right, nor our abhor- 
rence to what is wrong. We may frequently 
observe real serious devotedness, even amongst 
the professors of the most absurd superstitions; 
but it would be difficult so find a devoted natural 
religionist. ‘The reason is, that these supersti- 
tions, though they have no relation to the true 


44 


character of God, have yet some applicability to 
the natural constitution of man. Natural reli- 
gion possesses the former qualification in much 
greater perfection than the latter. Under an 
‘impression of guilt, a man who has no other reli- 
gious knowledge than that which unassisted rea- 
son affords, must feel much perplexity and em- 
barrassment. He believes that God is gracious; 
but the wounds which he feels in his own con- 
science, and the misery which he sees around 
him, demonstrate also that God is of a most un- 
compromising purity. He knows not what to 
think; and he is tempted either to despair, or to 
turn his thoughts away entirely from so alarming 
asubject. <All these conditions of mind—despair, 
thoughtlessness, and perplexity—are equally ad- 
verse to the moral health of the soul, and are 
equally opposed to that zealous and cheerful obe- 
dience which springs from gratitude for mercy, 
and esteem for holy and generous worth. In 
such circumstances, the mind would naturally, 
in self-defence, contrive to lower its standard of 
moral duty down to the level of its own perform- 
ances; or would settle into a gloomy hostility to 
a lawgiver who requires more from it than it is 
disposed to render. It is in this form of weak- 
ness and perversion that we generally see natural 
religion; and we need not wonder at this melan- 
choly phenomenon, when we consider that its 
principles consist in abstract conclusions of the 


~~ 


: 


| 


: 


* 


45 


intellect, which make no powerful appeal to the 
heart. 7 

A single definite and intelligible action gives 
a vividness and power to the idea of that moral 
character which it exbibits, beyond what could 
be conveyed by.a multitude of abstract descrip- 
tions. ‘Thus the abstract ideas of patriotism and 
integrity make but an uninteresting appearance, 
when contrasted with the high spectacle of he- 
roic worth which was exhibited in the conduct of 
Regulus, when, in the senate of his country, he 
raised his solitary voice against those humbling 
propositions of Carthage, which, if acquiesced in, 
would have restored him to liberty, and which, 
for that single reason, had almost gained an ac- 
quiescence; and then, unsubdued alike by the 
frantic entreaties of his family, the weeping soli- 
citations of the admiring citizens, and the ap- 
palling terrors of his threatened fate, he returned 
to Africa, rather than violate his duty to Rome 
and the sacredness of truth. 

In the same way, the abstract views of the 
Divine character, drawn from the observation of 
nature, are in general rather visions of the intel- 
lect than efficient moral principles in the heart 
and conduct; and however true they may be, are 
uninteresting and unexciting, when compared 
with the vivid exhibition of them in a history of 
definite and intelligible action. 

To assist our weakness, therefore, and to ae- 


46 


commodate his instructions to the principles of 
our nature, God has been pleased to present to 
us a most interesting series of actions, in which 
his moral character, as far as we are concerned, 
is fully and perspicuously embodied. In this 
narration, the most condescending and affecting 
and entreating kindness, is so wonderfully com- 
bined with the most spotless holiness, and the 
natural appeals which emanate from every part 
of it, to our esteem, our gratitude, our shame, and 
our interest, are so urgent and constraining, that 
he who carries about with him the conviction of 
the truth and reality of this history, possesses in 
it a principle of mighty efficiency, which must 
subdue and harmonize his mind to the will of 
that Great Being whose character is there de- 
picted. 

The delineation of the character of an over- 
- Tuling authority, whatever that character may 
be, makes a strong appeal to the subjects, on the 
score of their interest: It calls upon them, as they 
value their happiness, to bring their own views 
into conformity with it. The appeal becomes 
more forcible and effectual, if the character 
which they are thus called on to contemplate be 
such a one as would naturally excite esteem and 
affection in an uninterested observer, But the 
weight of the appeal is infinitely increased, when 
this powerful and amiable Being is represented 
to them in the attitude of a benefactor, exerting 


: 


) 


47 
this power and putting forth this character on 
their own peculiar behalf. : 

It is thus that the character of God is repre- 
sented in the New Testament; and it is on these 
grounds that we are called on to love, to obey, 
and to imitate him. If God’s character be in 
fact such as is there described, then those who 
reject the history in which this character is de- 
veloped, shut themselves out from the opportu- 
nity of familiarizing their minds to the Divine 
government, and of bringing their affections and 
their views to harmonize with it. 

There is a divine beauty and wisdom in the 
form in which God has chosen to communicate 
the knowledge of his character, which, when 
duly considered, can scarcely fail of exciting 
gratitude and admiration. The object of the 
gospel is to bring man into harmony with God: 
the subject of its operations, therefore, is the hu- 
man heart in all its various conditions. It ad- 
dresses the learned and the unlearned, the savage 
and the civilized, the decent and the profligate; 
and to all it speaks precisely the same language. 
What then is this universal language? It can not 
be the language of metaphysical discussion, or 
what is called abstract moral reasoning; for this 
could be intelligible to few, and it could influ- 
ence the characters of fewer. The principles 


_ which it addresses ought evidently to be such as 


are in a great measure independent of the ex- 


4§ 


tremes of cultivation and barbarism; and, in 
point of fact, they areso. They are indeed the 
very principles which Mr. Hume designates to 
be, ‘a species of natural instincts, which no 
reasoning or process of the thought or under- 
standing is able either to produce or to prevent.” 
(Inquiry into Human Understanding, sect. v. 
part 1.) Its argument consists in a relation of 
facts: If these are really believed, the effect on 
the character necessarily follows. It presents a 
history of wondrous love, in order to excite grati- 
tude; of high and holy worth, to attract venera- 
tion and esteem: It presents a view of danger, to 
produce alarm; of refuge, to confer peace and 
joy; and of eternal ‘glory, to animate hope. 


49 


SECTION Ill. 


TE reasonableness of a religion seems to me 
to consist in there being a direct and natural con- 
nection between a believing the doctrines which 
it inculcates, and a being formed by these to the 
character which it recommends. If the belief of 
the doctrines has no tendency to train the disciple 
ina more exact and more willing discharge of 
its moral obligations, there is evidently a very 
strong probability against the truth of that re- 
ligion. In other words, the doctrines ought to 
tally with the precepts, and to contain in their 
very substance some urgent motives for the per- 
formance of them; because, if they are not of this 
description, they are of no use, What is the his- 
tory of another world-to me, unless it have some 
intelligible relation to my duties or happiness? If 
we apply this standard to the various religions 
which different nations have framed for them- 
selves, we shall find very little matter for appro- 
bation, and a great deal for pity and astonish- 
ment. The very states which have chiefly ex- 


_ celled in arts and literature and civil government, 


have failed here most lamentably. Their mo- 
E 


50 
ral precepts might be very good; but then these 
precepts had as much connection with the history 
of astronomy as with the doctrines of their reli- 
gion. Which of the adventures of Jupiter or Bra- 
ma or Osiris could be urged as a powerful mo- 
tive to excite a high moral feeling, or to produce 
a high moral action? The force of the moral pre- 
_ cepts was rather lessened than increased by the 
facts of their mythology. In the religion of Ma- 
homet there are many excellent precepts; but it 
contains no illustration of the character of God, 
which has any particular tendency. beyond or 
even equal to that of natural religion to enforce 
these precepts. Indeed, one of the most impor- 
tant doctrines which be taught,—viz. a future 
life beyond the grave,—from the shape which he 
gave to it, tended to counteract his moral precepts. 
He described it as a state of indulgence in sen- 
sual gratifications, which never cloyed the appe- 
tite; and yet he preached temperance and self- 
denial. Itis evident, that any self-restraint which 
is produced by the belief of this doctrine, must 
be, merely external; for the real principle of tem- 
perance could not be cherished by the hope of 
indulgence at a future period. The philosophi- 
cal systems of theology are no less liable to the 
charge of absurdity than the popular superstitions. 


No one can read Cicero’s work on the nature of 


the gods, without acknowledging the justice of 
the Apostle’s sentence upon that class of reason- 


eee ee ee ~ 


51 
ers,—“‘ professing themselves to be wise, they 
became fools.” 

As the principles and feelings of our nature, 
which are addressed in religion, are precisely the 
same with those which are continually exercis- 
ed in the affairs of this world, we may expect to 
find a resemblance between the doctrines of a 
true religion and the means and arguments by 
which a virtuous man acquires an influence over 
the characters and conduct of his fellow-crea- 
tures. When a man desires another to do any 
thing, that is the precept; when he enforces it by 
any mode of persuasion, that is the doctrine. 
When the Athenians were at war with the He- 
raclide, it was declared by the Oracle, that the 
nations whose king died first should be victori- 
ous in the contest. As soon as this was known, 
Codrus disguised himself, went over to the camp 
of the enemy, and exposed himself there to a 
quarrel with a soldier, who killed him without 
knowing who he was. The Athenians sent to 
demand the body of their king, which so alarm- 
ed the Heraclida, from the recollection of the 
Oracle, that they fled in disorder. Now, let us 
suppose that Codrus wished to inculcate the prin- 
ciple of patriotism in bis countrymen. Ifhe had 
merely issued a proclamation, commanding every 
citizen to prefer the interest of his country to his 
own life, he would have been giving them a 
moral precept, but without a corresponding doc- 


52 


trine. If he had joined to this proclamation, the 
promise of honour and wealth as the rewards of 
obedience, he would have been adding a very 
powerful doctrine, yet nevertheless such a doc- 
trine as must have led much more directly to 
patriotic conduct than to patriotic feeling and 
principle. Vanity and avarice, without patriot- 
ism, might have gained those rewards: But if he 
wished to excite or to cherish the principle of 
patriotism in the hearts of his people, he chose 
the most eloquent and prevailing argument, when 
he sacrificed his life for them, and thus attracted 
their admiration and gratitude to that spirit which 
animated his breast, and their love to that coun- 
try, of which he was at once the representative 
and the ransom. 

It is indeed a striking and yet an undeniable 
fact, that we are comparatively little affected by 
abstract truths in morality. The cry of a child 
will produce a greater movement, in almost any 
mind, than twenty pages of unanswerable rea- 
soning. An instinctive acquaintance with this 
fact guides us in our dealings with our fellow- 
creatures; and He who formed the heart of man, 
has attested his revealed word, by showing his 
acquaintance with the channel through which 
persuasion and instruction might be most effectu- 
ally communicated. It may therefore be useful 
to illustrate, at greater length, the analogy which 
exists between the persuasions of the gospel, and 


—_ 


53 


those which might be fixed on as the most pow- 
erful arguments capable of being addressed to 
any human feelings on the subject of human in- 
terests, 

Let us, then, present to ourselves a company 
of men travelling along the sea-shore. One of 
them, better acquainted with the ground than the 
rest, warns them of quicksands, and points out to 
them a landmark which indicated the position of 
a dangerous pass. ‘They, however, see no great 
reason for apprehension; they are anxious to get 


' forwards, and can not resolve upon making a con- 


siderable circuit in order to avoid what appears 
to them an imaginary evil: they reject his coun- 
sel, and proceed onwards. In these circum- 
stances, what argument ought he to use? What 
mode of persuasion can we imagine fitted to 
fasten on their minds a strong conviction of the 
reality of their danger, and the disinterested be- 
nevolence of their adviser? His words have been 
ineffectual; he must try some other method; he — 
must act. And he does so; for, seeing no other 
way of prevailing on them, he desires them to 
wait only a single moment, till they see the truth 
of his warning confirmed by his fate. He goes 
before them; he puts his foot on the seemingly 
firm sand, and sinks to death. This eloquence 
is irresistible: He was the most active and vigor- 
ous amongst them; if any one could have extri- 
cated himself from the difficulty, it was he; they 
E 2 


54 


are persuaded; they make the necessary circuit, 
bitterly accusing themselves of the death of their 
generous companion; and during their progress, 
as often as these landmarks occur, his nobleness 
and their own danger rise to their minds, and 
secure their safety. Rashness is now not peri- 
lous merely,—it is ungrateful; it is making void 
the death of their deliverer, | 
To walk without God in the world, is to walk 
in sin; and sin is the way of danger. Men had 
been told this by their own consciences, and they 
had even partially and occasionally believed it; 
but still they walked on. Common arguments 
had failed; the manifestations of the Divine cha- 
racter in creation and providence, and the testi- 
mony of conscience, had been in a great measure 
disregarded: It thus seemed necessary, that a 
stronger appeal should be made to their under- 
standing and their feelings, The danger of sin 
must be more strikingly and unequivocally de- 
monstrated; and the alarm excited by this de- 
monstration must be connected with a more 
kindly and generous principle, which may bind 
their affections to that God from whom they have 
wandered. But how is this to be done? What 
more prevailing appeal can be made? Must the 
Almighty Warner demonstrate the evil of sin, by 
undergoing its effects? Must he prove the danger 
of sin, by exhibiting himself as a sufferer under 
its consequences? Must he who knew no sin 


5d 


sufler as a sinner, that he might persuade men 
that sin is indeed an evil?-—It was even so. God 
became man, and dwelt amongst us. He him- 
self encountered the terrors of guilt, and bore its 
punishment; and called on his careless creatures 
to consider and understand the evil of sin, by 
contemplating even its undeserved effects on a 
being of perfect purity, who was over all, God 
blessed for ever. Could they hope to sustain 
that weight which had crushed the Son of God? 
Could they rush into that guilt and that danger 
against which he had so pathetically warned 
them? Could they refuse their hearts and their 
obedience to him who had proved himself so 
worthy of their confidence?—especially when 
we consider that this great Benefactor is ever 
present, and sees the acceptance which this his- 
tory of his compassion meets with in every breast, 
rejoicing in those whose spirits are purified by 
it, and still holding out the warning of his ex- 
ample to the most regardless. 

Ancient history tells us of a certain king who 
made a law against adultery, in which it was 
enacted that the offender should be punished by 
-the loss of both eyes. The very first offender 
was his own son, The case was most-distress- 
ing; for the king was an affectionate father, as 
well as a just magistrate. After much delibera- 
tion and inward struggle, he finally commanded 
one of his own eyes to be pulled out and one of 


56 


his son’s. It is easier to conceive than to de- 
scribe what must have been the feelings of the 
son in these most affecting circumstances. His 
offence would appear to him in a new light; it 
would appear to him not simply as connected 
with painful consequences to himself, but as the 
cause of a father’s sufferings, and as an injury to 
a father’s love. If the king had passed over the 
law altogether, in his son’s favour, he would 
have exhibited no regard for justice, and he would 
have given a very inferior proof of affection. We 
measure affection by the sacrifice which it is pre- 
pared to make, and by the resistance which it 
overcomes, If the sacrifice had been made, and 
the resistance overcome secretly in the heart of 
the king, there could have been but little evi- 
dence of the real existence either of principle.cr 
of affection; and the son might perhaps have had 
reason to think, that bis pardon was as much the 
effect of his father’s disregard of the Jaw as of 
his affection to him; and at any rate, even if he 
had given the fullest credit to the abstract justice 
and kindness which were combined in his ac- 
quittal, it is impossible that this theoretical cha- 
racter of his father could have wrought on bis 
heart any impression half so energetic, or inte- 
resting, or overwhelming, as that which must have 
been produced by the simple and unequivocal 
and practical exhibition of worth which has been 
recorded, If we suppose that the happiness of 


57 


the young man’s life depended on the eradication 
of this criminal propensity, it is not easy to ima- 
gine how the king could more wisely or more 
eflectually have promoted this benevolent object. 
The action was not simply a correct representa- 
tion of the king’s character,—it also contained 
in itself an appeal most correctly adapted to the 
feelings of the criminal, It justified the king in 
the exercise of clemency; it tranquillized the 
son’s mind, as being a pledge of the reality and 
sincerity of his father’s gracious purposes towards 
him; and it identified the object of his esteem 
with the object of his gratitude. Mere gratitude, 
unattracted by an object of moral worth, could 
never have stamped an impression of moral worth 
on his character; which was his father’s ultimate 
design. We might suppose the existence of this 
same character without its producing such an 
action; we might suppose a conflict of contend- 
ing feelings to be carried on in the mind without 
evidencing, in the conduct flowing from it, the 
full vehemence of the conflict, or defining the 
adjustment of the contending feelings; but we 
can not suppose any mode of conduct so admira- 
bly fitted to impress the stamp of the father’s 
character on the mind of the son, or to associate 
the love of right and the abhorrence of wrong 
with the most powerful instincts of the heart. 
The old man not only wished to act in perfect 
consistency with his own views of duty, but also 


58 


to produce a salutary effect on the mind of his 
son; and it is the full and effectual union of these 
two objects which forms the most beautiful and 
striking part of this remarkable history. 

There is a singular resemblance between this 
moral exhibition and the communication which 
God has been pleased to make of himself in the 


gospel. Wecan not but love and admire the 


character of this excellent prince, although we 
ourselves have no direct interest in it; and shall 
we refuse our love and’ admiration to the King 
and Father of the human:race, who, with a kind- 
ness and condescension unutterable, has, in call- 
ing his wandering children to return to duty and 
to happiness, presented to each of usa like aspect 
of tenderness and purity, and made use of an 
argument which makes the most direct and irre- 
sistible appeal to the most familiar and at the 
same time the most powerful principles in the 
heart of man? 

In the gospel, God is represented in the com- 
bined character of a gracious parent and a just 
judge. His guilty children are arraigned before 
him and condemned :They have not only forfeit- 
ed all claim to his favour, by the breach of that 
fundamental law which binds all intelligent crea- 
tures to love and resemble their Creator; but they 
have also by the same means contracted the dis- 
ease of sin, and lost that mental health which can 
alone capacitate for spiritual enjoyment. Thus, 


59 


the consistency of their Judge, and their own 
diseased condition, seemed equally to cover their 
futurity with a pall of the deepest mourning. 
This disease constituted their punishment. Par- 
don, whilst this disease remained, was a mere 
name: Mercy, therefore, if at all communicated, 
must be communicated in such a way as to heal 
this disease—in such a way as to associate sin 
with the abhorrence of the heart, and duty with 
the love of the heart. The exhibition of the Di- 
vine character in this dispensation of mercy, must 
not only be consistent with its own excellence, 
but also suited to make an impression on the 
reason and the feelings of the guilty. And it is 
so. The Judge himself bore the punishment of 
transgression, whilst he published an amnesty to 
the guilty, and thus asserted the authority and 
importance and worth of the law, by that very 
act which beamed forth love unspeakabie, and 
displayed a compassion which knew no obstacle 
but the unwillingness of the criminals to accept 
it. The Eternal Word became flesh; and ex- 
hibited, in sufferings and in death, that combina- 
tion of holiness and mercy, which, if believed, 
must excite love, and if loved, must produce re- 
semblance. 

A pardon without a sacrifice, could have made 
but a weak and obscure appeal to the under- 
standing or the heart. It could not have demon- 
strated the evil of sin; it could not have demon- 


60 


strated the graciousness of God; and therefore it 
could not have led men either to hate sin or to 
love God. Ifthe punishment as well as the cri- 
minality of sin consists in an opposition to the 
character of God, the fullest pardon must be per- 
fectly useless, whilst this opposition remains in 
the heart; and the substantial usefulness of the 
pardon will depend upon its being connected with 
such circumstances as may have a natural and 
powerful tendency to remove this opposition, and 
create a resemblance. The pardon of the gospel 
is connected with such circumstances; for the sa- 
crifice of Christ has associated sin with the blood 
of a benefactor, as well as with our own person- 
al sufferings,—and obedience with the dying en- 
treaty of a friend breathing outa tortured life for 
us, as well as with our own unending glory in 
his blessed society. This act, like that in the 
preceding illustration, justifies God as a lawgiver 
in dispensing mercy to the guilty; it gives a pledge 
of the sincerity and reality of that mercy; and, 
by associating principle with mercy, it identifies 
the object of gratitude with the object of es- 
teem, in the heart of the sinner, It may also 
here be observed, that the resurrection and as- 
cension of Christ, as the representative of our 
race, not only demonstrate the Divine com- 
placency in the work of the Saviour, but exhi- 
bit to us also the indissoluble connection which 
subsists between immortal glory and an entire 


bi 

unreserved acquiescence in the will of God; and 
thus the Chrisiian hope is not directed to an un- 
defined ease and enjoyment in heaven, but to a 
defined and intelligible happiness springing from 
the more perfect exercise of those very principles 
of love to God and man, which formed the cha- 
racter of their Master and still constitute his joy. 

The distinction of persons in the Divine na- 
ture, we can not comprehend; but we can easily 
comprehend the high and engaging morality of 
that character of God which is developed in the 
history of the New Testament. God gave his 
equal and well-beloved Son, to suffer in the stead 
of an apostate world; and through this exhibition 
of awful justice, he publishes the fullest and 
freest pardon, He thus teaches us, that it forms 
no part of his scheme of mercy to dissolve the 
eternal connection between sin and misery. No; 
this connection stands sure; and one of the chief 
objects of Divine revelation is to convince men 
of this truth. And Justice does the work of 
Mercy, when it alarms us to a sense of danger, 
and stimulates us to flee from a continually-in- 
creasing wo. But the cross of Christ dees not 
merely show the danger of sin; it demonstrates 
an unwearied compassion—a love unutterable, 
which extends its invitations and entreaties of 
reconciliation as wide as the ravages of sin, in 
order that by such an instance of self-sacrificing 
solicitude on the part of God for their welfare, 

F 


62 


men might be allured to the love of Him, who 
had so loved them; and that their grateful admi- 
ration having for its object the full perfections of 
the Divine character, might graduallv carry them 
forward to an entire resemblance of it. 

Most men will have no hesitation to admit the 
general proposition, that the moral character of 
God supposes the union.of justice and mercy in 
an infinite degree. Now, the gospel history sim- 
ply gives an individuality and a life to this gene- 
ral idea, in the same way that the old king’s con- 
duct towards his son gave an individuality and 
a life to the general idea of paternal affection in 
union with a regard for the laws. Most men 
will also admit, that the conduct of this good 
prince was suited not only to give a distinct view 
of his own principles, but also to stamp the cha- 
racter of these principles on the heart of his son. 
But the same causes operate in fitting the conduct 
of God, as declared in the gospel, for stamping 
the character of its principles on the hearts of © 
those who believe it. The old king was sensible, 
that the abstract idea of his justice and affection 
would have had but very little influence on.his 
son’s character; and therefore it was the part of 
a wise and benevolent man to embody this ab- 
stract idea in a palpable action, which might 
make an intelligible and powerful appeal to his 
understanding and his heart, ‘The abstract idea 
of God’s character has still less influence on our 


atta 


63 


minds; because the invisible infinity of his es- 
sence adds incalculably to the natural vagueness 
and inefficiency of such impressions. [t was 
therefore the part of a wise and benevolent Being 
to embody his attributes in a train of palpable 
and intelligible action, which might carry a dis- 
tinct and influential appeal to our capacities and 
feelings. If the ultimate object of God’s deal- 
ings with men had been to pardon their sins, this 
might have been done without giving them any 
information on the subject until they stood be- 
fore the judgment seat; But if his gracious object 
was, as the Bible represents it, to make men 
partakers of his own happiness, by communica- 
ting to them his own moral likeness, it was ne- 
cessary that such an exhibition of his moral cha- 
racter should be made to them, as might convey 
to their understandings a distinct idea of it, and 
might address to their feelings of gratitude and 
esteem and interest, such appropriate excite- 
ments and persuasives as might lead to a full re- 
semblance of it. 


SECTION IV, 


Bur many who admit the abstract character 
of God, feel notwithstanding a disposition to re- 
ject the gospel history; although its whole tenor 
is in perfect conformity with the general idea to 
which they have professed iheir consent, This 
is natural, though unreasonable. It is probable 
that the old king’s son was very much astonished 
when he learned the final determination as to the 
mode of executing the law in his case; yet, if he 
had been asked before, what his opinion of his 
father’s character was, it is likely that he would 
have answered with confidence, that he knew 
him to be a just prince and an affectionate fa- 
ther. Why, then, was he astonished? Did not 
the fact agree with his previous judgment? The 
only explanation is, that he did not comprehend 
the full meaning of his own expressions; and 
when he saw the general idea which he had 
formed of his father’s character embodied in an 
action, he did not recognise it to be in fact the 
same thing. Many of those who reason on the 
character of God fall into a similar mistake: 
They admit his absolute moral perfections; but 
iam. 


“ir te oY 
iy oh hog, 

i A \. aa a 
wage ‘ 


65 


when the abstract idea which they have formed 
of Him takes life before their eyes, and assumes 
the body of an action, they start from it as if it 
were an utter stranger, And why?—The only 
reason which can be given is, that the abstract 
idea which they talk about is so vague and in- 
determinate as to make no distinct impression on 
their minds, 

Ifa man really admitted, in truth and in intel- 
ligence, that abstract idea of God which he ad- 
mits in words, he would find his reason compelled 
to believe a fact which is only an exemplification 
of that idea, nay the existence of which seems in 
some degree indispensable to the consistency of 
that idea. The admission of this abstract idea, 
and the rejection of the corresponding fact, are 
as inconsistent as to be convinced of the thorough 
liberality of a friends character, and at the same 
time to reject as absurd and fanciful the history 
ofa liberal action said to have been performed 
by him when the occasion seemed actually to req 
quire it. 

There is another quality belonging to abstract. 
ideas, arising from the vagueness of the impres- 
sions made by them, which recommends them to 
many minds; and that is, their inoffensiveness. 
A corrupt politician, for instance, can speculate 
on and applaud the abstract idea of integrity; but 
_ when this abstract idea takes the form of a man 
and a course of action, it ceases to be that harm- 

F2 


66 


less and welcome visiter it used to be, and draws 
on itself the decided enmity of its former appa- 
rent friend. The fact is, that the man never 
really loved the abstract idea of integrity, else he 
must have loved every exemplification of it. We 
have thus an unequivocal test of a man’s princi- 
ples. Bring the eloquent eulogist of magnanimi- 
ty into a situation where he may be tried,— 
bring him in difficult circumstances into contact 
with a person of real magnanimity,—and we 
shall see whether it was the thing or the name 
which he loved. 

In the same way, many men will admit the 
abstract idea of a God of infinite holiness and 
goodness; and will even take delight in exerci- 
sing their reason or their taste in speculating on 
the subject of his being and attributes; yet these 
same persons will shrink with dislike and alarm 
from the living energy which this abstract idea 
assumes in the Bible. It is there no longer a 
harmless generality: It isa living Being, assert- 
ing one spiritual character and one class of prin- 
ciples in harmony with bis own, disapproving and 
condemning every other, and casting the weight 
of omnipotence into his scale, to prove the vanity 
ofall resistance. ‘Those who feel oppressed by 
the vigilance and strictness of this ever-present 
Witness, without being convinced of the impor- 
tance of bis friendship, are glad to retreat and to 
shroud themselves under the vagueness of an ab- 


67 


stract idea. But in truth they do not believe nor 
love this abstract idea of God, else they would’ 
also believe and love the living character which 
corresponds to it. The real conviction of the 
truth of the abstract idea would necessarily con- 
tain in it the conviction of the corresponding 
fact. 

These remarks may serve to illustrate the 
grounds on which a charge of moral guilt is 
brought by the Scriptures against unbelief, Ifa 
man can not refuse his assent and approbation to 
an abstract principle in morals, why does he re- 
ject it when it loses its abstractness, and comes 
in a form of power and efficiency? The princi- 
ple continues the same; it has only assumed a 
more active attitude. In truth, he now rejects 
it because it is active, and because it strenuously 
opposes many of his favourite inclinations. He 
does not wish to be guided by what he knows to 
be right, but by what he feels to be agreeable. 
“‘ He does not wish to retain God in his know- 
ledge.” He does not wish, at any risk or with 
any sacrifice, to do the will of God; and there- 
fore * he doth not know of the doctrine whether 
it be of God.” Such an ignorance as this is 
criminal; because it arises from a wilful stifling 
of conviction, and an aversion to admitted truths. 

It thus appears, that, by the help of abstract 
ideas and general terms, a man may appear to 
have made great progress in morals, whilst ip 


68 


fact he has learned nothing. Things operate on 
our minds exactly according to our apprebension 
of them, and not according to their own intrinsic 
value. Our apprehension of abstract truths in 
morality is so vague, that they hardly operate on 
our characters at all. Does it not, then, ap- 
proach almost to a demonstration, that if God 
really intended to improve the happiness and 
characters of men, by instructing them in the 
excellence of his own character, he would com- 
municate this instruction, not in the form of ab- 
stract propositions and general terms, which are, 
by the construction of the human mind, incapa- 
ble of producing any real and lasting effect upon 
us, but by that way which coincides with our 
faculties of apprehension,—that is, by the way of 
living and palpable actions, which may add the 
weight and distinctness of their own substance to 
those truths which they are intended to develop? 
That men stand in need of such an improvement, 
is certain; that a gracious Being should intend it, 
is surely not improbable; and if he had such an 
intention, that some such scheme as Christianity 
should have been adopted, seems necessary to its 
success. 

At first sight, it may seem strange that a sys- 
tem evidently flowing from so much goodness, 
tending to so much happiness, and constructed 
with so much wisdom, should in general be either 
rejected, or admitted with an inattentive and 


69 


therefore useless assent: But there are circum- 
stances in the case which abundantly account for 
this, The Great Author of Christianity antici- 
pated this rejection, and forewarned his disciples 
of it. His knowledge of the heart of man made 
him well acquainted with many causes which 
would operate against the reception ot his doc- 
trine. When Agis attempted to regenerate the 
diseased government of Sparta, he stirred up and 
armed against himself all the abuses and corrup- 
tions of the state. [t would have been strange if 
this had not happened; and it would have been 
strange, if a doctrine which tends to regenerate 
human nature, and to eradicate. the deep-seated 
and yet favourite diseases of the heart, should 
not arm against itself all those moral evils 
which it threatens to destroy. 

A man finds no difficulty in giving his,acqui- 
escence to any proposition which does not carry 
along with it an obligation on him to something 
which he dislikes. The great bulk of the popu- 
lation of this country, for instance, acquiesce in 
the Copernican system of astronomy, although 
they may possess little or no knowiedge of the 
mathematical or physical truths on which this 
system is reared. But let us make the supposi- 
tion for a moment, that an acquiescence in this 
theory somehow or other involved in it a moral 
obligation on every believer of it to walk round 
the world, we can not doubt but that the party of 
Ptolemy, or some other less imperious philoso- 


70 
pher, would, in these circumstances, very soon 
carry almost every voice. 

The religion of Jesus Christ involves in it a 
great variety of obligations; and it was indeed 
principally for the purpose of elucidating and en- 
forcing these obligations, that God was pleased 
to make it known to mankind. And many of 
these obligations are so distasteful to the natural 
selfishness or indolence of our hearts, that we 
feel unwilling to embrace a conviction which in- 
volves in it so complete a derangement of our 
plans, and a thwarting of our habitual inclina- 
tions. Were the beautiful lineaments of the 
Christian character to be portrayed in a theory 
which should disclaim all interference with the 
consciences and duties of the world, it would 
infallibly attract much intellectual and senti- 
mental, admiration: And were the high and 
holy character of God, and its universally-per- 
vading influence, to be painted in glowing 
colours,—and were that unbounded liberty to 
be described, in which those spirits that are per- 
fectly conformed to His will, must expatiate 
through all the vastness of creation and eternity, 
were all this to be couched in the terms of a 
lofty imagination, without any appeal to the con- 
science, and without attempting to bring in this 
splendid vision to haunt our hours of carelessness 
or of crime,-—who can doubt that taste, and 
fancy, and eloquence, would pour in their con- 


71 


verted disciples within the engaging circle of 
such areligion? And yet we find, that taste, and 
fancy, and eloquence, and high intellect, and fine 
sentiment, often reject Christianity: And the 
reason seems to be, because it is not a science 
merely, but a practical art, in which every part 
of knowledge is connected with a corresponding 
duty. It does not present to us a beautiful pic- 
ture merely,—it commands us to copy it; it does 
not merely hold forth to us the image of perfect 
virtue,—it declares to us also our own guilt, and 
denounces our condemnation; it does not merely 
exhibit to us the sublime idea of a spiritual and 
universal sovereign,—it also calls upon us, by 
this very exhibition, under the most awful sanc- 
tions of hope and fear, to humble ourselves be- 
fore Him, and to look to Him as the rightful pro- 
prietor of our thoughts and words and actions, 
There is something in all this very harassing and 
unpleasing to our nature; and the fact that it is 
so, may account for the real rejection that it 
generally meets with even amongst its nominal 
friends, and may also operate as a warning 
against ascribing too much weight to that con- 
tempt or aversion which it sometimes receives 
from those whose talents, when directed to other 
objects, we have been accustomed to follow with 
our admiration and gratitude. The proud man 
does not like to give up the triumph of superiori- 
ty; the vain man does not like to give up the 


72 


real or fancied applause of the circle in which 
he moves; the careless or worldly or sensual man 
does not like to have himself continually watched 
and scrutinized by a witness who never sleeps, 
and who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. 
Now, as great talents are often to be found in 
men of such characters, we need not wonder that 
they employ these talents in defending the foun- 
dation on which their chief enjoyment is built, 
rather than in pursuit of a truth which, they are 
conscious, would level the whole fabric with the 
ground. Men do not look very diligently for that 
which they would be sorry to find. 

It is difficult to persuade a careless profligate 
to live a life of temperate and useful exertion; 
because it is difficult to obtain from him a can- 
did hearing on the subject. He thinks exclu- 
sively of the gratifications which he is called upon 
to renounce, and never allows his mind to rest 
. calmly on the motives which would induce him 
to do so. Whilst he apprehends fully and dis- 
tinctly the pleasures connected with his own 
habits, he has a very vague idea of the evils re- 
sulting from them, or of the advantages of an 
opposite course. Ifthe latter apprehension were 
as vivid as the former, the man’s character would 
change. And there are arguments, and those of 
a mere worldly nature, which have often produ- 
ced this effect. All that is necessary to accom- 
plish it, is a candid attention on his part to the 


73 


whole truth of the case. There is in his mind, 
indeed, a natural opposition to the argument; but 
there is also in the argument a natural destruc- 
tiveness of his faults; and if it he vividly appre- 
hended and retained, it will gain the victory, and 
cast out its enemy. The argument, then, must, 
in the first place, be a sufficient one in itself; 
that is to say, it must show, that, in reason, the 
advantage gained by complying with it exceeds 
the advantage of rejecting it. And, in the se- 
cond place, this sufficient argument must be dis- 
tinctly and fully apprehended. The best argu- 
ment in the world is of no use, unless it be 
properly understood, and the motives which it 
holds forth be vividly apprehended. To amind 
that does not distinctly comprehend the subject, 
a good argument will appear bad, and a bad one 
may appear good. We account, in this way, for 
the different success which the same argument 
meets with when it is addressed to a number of 
individuals, Some are moved by it—others are 
not; that is to say, some fully apprehend it— 
others do not, And this may arise either from 
their misunderstanding the terms of the argu- 
ment, or from their unwillingness to admit a 
principle which interferes with their own incli- 
nations. ) 

Thus it fares often with human arguments; nor 
do the arguments of God escape a similar fate. 
‘We have already seen how the spirituality of the 

fi 


74 


Christian requirements naturally excites an un- 
willingness to admit its principles. This unwil- 
lingness can only be overcome by a full view of 
its glorious inducements. But, unfortunately, 
this view is often intercepted and obscured by 
various causes, and by none more than the usual 
way in which religion is studied, 

Most people in this country, and probably even 
the majority of the population in Europe, think 
that they understand Christianity; and yeta very 
small proportion of them have read the Bible 
with that degree of ordinary attention which they 
bestow on the common concerns of life. Their 
ideas on this subject are derived almost entirely 
from creeds and church articles, or human com- 
positions of some kind. The evil consequences 
arising from this are most grievous. To con- 
vince ourselves that they are indeed so toa high 
degree, we have only to compare the two me- 
theds. 

In the Bible, we uniformly find the doctrines 
—even those that are generally considered most 
abstruse—pressed upon us as demonstrations or 
evidences of some important moral feature of the 
Divine mind, and as motives tending to produce 
in us some corresponding disposition in relation 
to God or man. This is perfectly reasonable. 
Our characters can not but be in some degree af- 
fected, by what we believe to be the conduct and 
the will of the Almighty towards ourselves and 


75 


the rest of our species. The history of this con- 
duct, and this will, constitutes what are called 
the Christian doctrines. If then, the disposition, 
or character which we are urged to acquire, re- 
commend itself to our reasons and consciences as 
right and agreeable to the will of God, we can 
not but approve that precept as morally true; and 
if the doctrine by which it is enforced carries in 
it a distinct and natural tendency to produce this 
disposition or character, then we feel ourselves 
compelled to admit that there ,is at least a moral 
truth in this doctrine. And if we find that the 
doctrine has not only this purely moral tendency, 
but that it is also most singularly adapted to as- 
sert and acquire a powerful influence over those 
principles in our nature to which it directs its 
appeal, then we must also pronounce that there 
is a natural truth in the doctrine,—or, in other 
words, that however contradictory it may be to 
human practice, it has however a natural consist- 
ency with the regulating principles of the hu- 
man mind. And farther, if the doctrine be not 
only true in morals and in its natural adaptation 
to the mind of man, but if the fact which it re- 
cords coincides also and harmonizes with that 
general idea of the Divine character which rea- 
son forms from the suggestions of conscience, and 
from an observation of the works and ways of 
God in the external world, then we are bound to 
acknowledge that this doctrine appears to be true 


76 


in its relation to God. In the Bible, the Chris- 
tian doctrines are always stated in this connec- 
tion: They stand as indications of the character 
of God, and as the exciting motives of a corres- 
ponding character in man. Forming thus the 
connecting link between the character of the 
Creator and the creature, they possess a majesty 
which it is impossible to despise, and exhibit a 
form of consistency and truth which it is difficult 
to disbelieve. Such is Christianity in the Bible; 
but in creeds and church articles it is far other- - 
wise. ‘These tests and summaries originated 
from the introduction of doctrinal errors and me- 
taphysical speculations into religion; and, in 
consequence of this, they are not so much intend- 
ed to be the repositories of truth, as barriers 
against the encroachment of erroneous opinions, 
The doctrines contained in them therefore are 
not stated with any reference to their great ob- 
ject in the Bible,—the regeneration of the human 
heart, by the knowledge of the Divine character. 
They appear as detached propositions, indicating 
no moral cause, and pointing to no moral effect. 
They do not look to God, on the one hand, as 
their source; nor to man, on the other, as the ob- 
ject of their moral urgency. They appear like 
links severed from the chain to which they be- 
longed; and thus they lose all that evidence 
which arises from their consistency, and all that 
dignity which is connected with their high de- 


747 


sign. I do not talk of the propriety or impro- 
priety of having church articles, but of the evils 
which spring from: receiving impressions of reli- 
gion exclusively or chiefly from this source. 

[I may instance the ordinary statement of the 
doctrine of the Trinity, as an illustration of what 
I mean. It seems difficult to conceive that any 
man should read through the New Testament 
candidly and attentively, without being convinced 
that this doctrine is essential to and implied in 
every part of the system: But it is not so diffi- 
cult to conceive, that although his mind is_per- 
fectly satisfied on this point, he may yet, if his 
religious knowledge is exclusively derived from 
the Bible, feel a little surprised and staggered, 
when he for the first time reads the terms in 
which it is announced in the articles and confes- 
sions of all Protestant churches. In these sum- 
maries, the doctrine in question is stated by it- 
self, divested of all its scriptural accompani- 
ments;and is made to bear simply on the nature 
of the Divine essence, and the mysterious fact of 
the existence of Three in One. It is evident 
that this fact, taken by itself, can not in the 
smallest degree tend to develop the Divine cha- 
racter, and therefore can not make any moral 
impression on our minds. 

In the Bible, it assumes quite a different shape; 
it is there subservient to the manifestation of the 
moral character of God. The doctrine of God’s 

G2 


18 


combined justice and mercy in the redemption of 
sinners, and of his continued spiritual watchful- 
ness over the progress of truth through the world, 
and in each particular heart, could not have been 
communicated without it, so as to have been 
distinctly and vividly apprehended; but it ts 
never mentioned except in connection with these 
objects; nor is it ever taught as a separate sub- 
ject of belief. There is a great and important 
difference between these two modes of state- 
ment. In the first, the doctrine stands as an 
‘isolated fact of a strange and unintelligible na- 
ture, and is apt even to suggest the idea that 
Christianity holds out a premium for believing 
improbabilities. In the other, it stands indisso- 
lubly united with an act of Divine holiness and 
compassion, which radiates to the heart an ap- 
peal of tenderness most intelligible in its nature 
and object, and most. constraining in its influ- 
ence. 

The abstract fact that there is a plurality in 
the unity of the Godhead, really makes no ad- 
dress either to our understandings, or our feel- 
ings, or our consciences. But the obscurity of 
the doctrine, as far as moral purposes are con- 
cerned, is dispelled, when it comes in such a 
form as this,—‘* God so loved the world, that he 
gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieved in him might not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life.” Or this,—‘ But the Comforter, 


719. 


which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will 
send in my name, he shall teach you all things.” 
Our metaphysical ignorance of the Divine es- 
sence is not indeed in the slightest degree re- 
moved by this mode of stating the subject; but 
our moral ignorance of the Divine character is 
enlightened; and that is the thing with which we 
have todo. We love or hate our fellow-crea- 
tures—we are attracted to or repelled from them 
—in consequence of our acquaintance with their 
moral characters; and we do not find ourselves 
barred from the exercise of these feelings, be- 
cause the anatomical structure of their frames is 
unknown to us, or because the mysterious link 
which binds the soul to the body has baffled all 
investigation. The knowledge communicated 
by revelation is a moral knowledge, and it has 
been communicated in order to produce a moral 
effect upon our characters; and a knowledge of 
the Divine essence would have as little bearing 
upon this object, as far as we can see, as a 
knowledge of the elementary essence of matter. 

I shall give one example more of the mode in 
which the truth of God has been perverted by 
passing through the hands of men. The doc- 
trine of the atonement through Jesus Christ, 
which is the corner-stone of Christianity, and to 
which all the other doctrines of revelation are 
subservient, has had to encounter the misappre- 
hension of the understanding as well as the pride 


30 


of the heart. This pride is natural to man, and 
can only be overcome by the power of the truth; 
but the misapprehension might be removed by 
the simple process of reading the Bible with 
attention; because it has arisen from neglecting 
the record itself, and taking our information 
from the discourses or the systems of men who 
have engrafted the metaphysical subtilties of the 
schools upon the unperplexed statement of the 
word of God. In order to understand the facts 
of revelation, we must form a system to ourselves; 
but if any subtilty, of which the application is un- 
intelligible to common sense, or uninfluential on 
conduct, enters into our system, we may be sure 
that it is a wrongone. ‘The common-sense sys- 
tem of a religion consists in two connections,— 
first, the connection between the doctrines and 
the character of God which they exhibit; and 
secondly, the connection between these same 
doctrines and the character which they are in- 
tended to impress on the mind of man, When, 
therefore, we are considering a religious doctrine, 
our questions ought to be, first, What view does 
this doctrine give of the character of God, in re- 
lation to sinners? And secondly, What influence 
is the belief of it calculated to exercise on the 
character of man? Though I state the questions 
separately, my observations on them can not 
properly be kept entirely distinct. The first of 
these questions leads us to consider the atone- 


$1 


ment as an act necessarily resulting from and 
simply developing principles in the Divine mind, 
altogether independent of its effects on the hearts 
of those who are interested in it. The second 
leads us to consider the adaptation of the history 
of the atonement, when believed, to the moral 
wants and capacities of the human mind. This 
last consideration really embraces the former; 
because it is only by the impressions produced 
on our minds by any being whatever, that we 
can judge of the qualities of that being. And the 
impressions produced by the atonement are 
referable to its adaptation to the human mind. 
There is something very striking and wonderful 
in this adaptation; and the deeper we search into 
it, the stronger reasons shall we discover for ad- 
miration and gratitude, and the more thoroughly 
shall we be convinced that it is not a lucky co- 
incidence, nor an adjustment contrived by the 
precarious and temporizing wisdom of this world, 
but that it is stamped with the uncounterfeited 
seal of the universal Ruler, and carries on it the 
traces of that same mighty will, which has con- 
nected the sun with his planetary train, and fixed 
the great relations in nature, appointing to each 
atom its bound that it can not pass, Yet it must 
be remembered that this adaptation is only an 
evidence for the truth of the gospel, but that it 
does not constitute the gospel. The gospel con- 
sists in the proclamation of mercy through the 


82 


sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This is the only true 
source of sanctity and peace and hope,—and if, 
instead of drinking from this fountain, we busy 
ourselves in tracing the course of the streams that 
flow from it, and in admiring the beauty and fer- 
tility of the country through which they run, we 
may indeed have a tasteful and sentimental relish 
for the organization of Christianity, but it will 
not be in us a well of water springing up into 
everlasting life. Before we admit the truth of a 
doctrine like the atonement, it is proper to con- 
template it in all its consequences; but after we 
have admitted it, we ought to give the first place 
in our thoughts to the doctrine itself, because our 
minds are usefully operated on, not by the 
thought of the consequences, but by the contem- 
plation of the doctrine. When an act of kind- 
ness has been done to us, our gratitude is excited 
by contemplating the kindness itself, not by in- 
vestigating that law in our nature by which grati- 
~ tude naturally is produced by kindness. It is of 
great importance to remember this, We do not 
and can not become Christians by thinking of 
the Christian character, nor even by thinking of 
the adaptation of the Christian doctrines to pro- 
duce that character, but by having our hearts 
impressed and imbued by the doctrines them- 
selves. The doctrines are constituent parts of 
God’s character and government, and they are 


83 


revealed to us that we may be renewed in the 
spirit of our minds by the knowledge of them, 
The doctrine of the atonement is the great 
subject of revelation. God is represented as de- 
lighting in it, as being glorified by it, and as be- 
ing most fully manifested by it. All the*other 
doctrines radiate from this as their centre. In 
subservience to it, the distinction in the unity of 
the Godhead has been revealed. It is described 
as the everlasting theme of praise and song 
amongst the blessed who surround the throne of 
God. It is represented in language suitable to 
our capacities, as calling forth all the energies of 
omnipotence. And indeed when we come to 
consider what this great work was, we shall not 
wonder that even the inspired heralds of salva- 
tion faltered in the utterance of it. The hu- 
man race had fallen off from their allegiance, 
they had turned away from God, their hearts 
chose what God abhorred, and despised what 
God honoured: They were the enemies of God, 
they had broken his law, which their own con- 
sciences acknowledged to be holy, just, and gra- 
cious, and had thus most righteously incurred 
the penalty denounced against sin. Man had 
thus ruined himself, and the faithfulness of God 
seemed bound to make this ruia irretrievable. 
The design of the atonement was to make 
mercy towards this offcast race consistent with 
the honour and the holiness of the Divine govern- 


84. 


ment. To accomplish this gracious purpose, the 
Eternal Word, who was God, took on himself the 
nature of man, and as the elder brother and re- 
presentative and champion of the guilty family, he 
solemnly acknowledged the justice of the sen- 
tence pronounced against sin, and submitted him- 
self to its full weight of wo, in the stead of his 
adopted kindred. God’s justice found rest here; his 
law was magnified and made honourable. The 
human nature of the Saviour gave him a brother’s 
right and interest in the human race, whilst his 
divine nature made his sacrifice available, and in- 
vested the law, under which he had bowed him- 
self, with a glory beyond what could have ac- 
crued to it from the penal extinction of a universe. 
The two books of the Bible in which this subject 
is most minutely and methodically argued, viz. 
the epistles to the Romans and the Hebrews; 
commence with asserting most emphatically both 
the perfect divinity and the perfect humanity of 
Jesus Christ. On this basis the reasoning is 
founded which demonstrates the universal suf- 
ficiency and the suitableness of the death of Christ 
as an atonement for the sins of men, or as a vin- 
dication of the justice of the Divine government 
in dispensing mercy to the guilty. What a won- 
derful and awful.and enlivening subject of con- 
templation this is! God so loved the world that he 
gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth on him might not perish, but have ever- 


- 


85 


lasting life. And the same God, that he might 
declare his abhorrence of sin in the very form and 
substance of his plan of mercy, sent forth this Son 
to make a propitiation through his blood. This 
is the God with whom we have to do. This is 
his character, the Just God and yet the Saviour. 
There is an augustness and a tenderness about 
this act, a depth and heighth and breadth and 
length of moral worth and sanctity, which defies 
equally the full grasp of thought and of Janguage; 
but we can understand something of it, and there- 
fore has it been revealed to us. But does it not 
mark in most fearful contrast, the difference which 
exists between the mind of God and the mind of 
man? Whilst man is making a mock at sin, God 
descends from the throne of glory, and takes on 
him the frailty of a creature, and dies as a crea- 
ture the representative of sinners, before his holy 
nature can pronounce sin-forgiven. It was to re- 
move this difference that these glad-tidings have 
been preached; aud he that believes this history 
of God, shall be like him, for in it he sees God as 
he is. In this wonderful transaction, mercy and 
truth meet together, righteousness and peace em- 
brace each other. It was planned and executed, 
in order that God might be just whilst he justified 
the believer in Jesus, It proclaims glory to God 
in the highest, peace on earth and good-will to 
man. The new and divinely constituted Head of 
the human family has been raised from the dead, 
a 


‘an 


86 


his sacrifice has been judicially accepted, and he 
has been crowned with immortality in his repre- 
sentative character. ‘This is the foundation on 
which sinners are invited to rest the interests of 
their souls for eternity. It is held up for their 
most scrutinizing inspection, and they are urged 
to draw near and examine whether it be sufficient 
to bear their weight. They are asked, as it were, 
if they can discover a flaw in the fuluess and sia- 
cerity and efficiency of that love which could 
prompt God to veil his majesty, and ally himself 
with our polluted race; and assume an elder bro- 
ther’s interest in our welfare, and magnify the 
law which we had broken, by suffering its penalty 
in our room, and thus connect the Divine glory 
with the saivation of sinners. They are assured 
on the authority of God, that the blood of Christ 
cleanseth from ali sin, and that there is no con- 
demnation to those who believe on him. They 
have thus the declaration of God, and the act of 
God, still more impressive and persuasive than his 
declaration, to engage their confidence, and to 
banish ail doubts and suspicions from their breasts. 
As the Saviour expired on the cross, he said, “ It 
is finished.” The work of expiation was then ac- 
complished: and the history of that work comes 
forth in the form of a general address to the sons 


of men, ‘Return unto me, for I have redeemed - 


you;” ** Be ye reconciled to God.” This is the © 


fountain of the river of life, and over it are these 


4 
. 


87 


words written, ‘‘ Ho, every one that thirsteth, 
come ye to the waters.” It proclaims pardon for 
sin; it is therefore quite suited for sinners, Jesus 
came not to call the righteous, but sinners to re- 
pentance; he came to seek and to save that which 
was lost. He said this himself, and he said it 
whilst every possible variety and aggravation of 
guilt stood full in the view of his omniscience. 
He said it whilst he was contemplating that cup 
of bitterness and amazement and death which he 
had engaged to drink, and which was mixed for 
him to this very end, that the chief of sinners 
might be welcome to the water of life. What is 
that weight of guilt which can exclude from 
mercy? The very thought is degrading to the dig- 
nity of the sacrifice, and injurious to the holy love 
which appointed it, and to the unstained truth 
which has pronounced its all-sufficiency. Can 
we wonder, then, at the high-tone triumph which 
filled the soul of the Apostle Paul as he gazed on 
this glorious object, and saw in it the pledge that 
his sins, which were many, were forgiven him, 
and that the heart of his often outraged Master 
yearned upon him, and that bis own lot for eter- 
nity was bound up with the glorious eternity of 
his God? “Who shall lay any thing to the 
charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth, 
who ishe that condemneth? It is Christ that died, 
yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the 
right hand of God, who also maketh intercession 
_ for us.” 


88 


- But if the virtue and sufficiency of the atone- 
ment be thus universal, why are not the benefits 
of it universally enjoyed? Had the mere removal 
of av impending penalty, in consistency with jus- 
tice, constituted the whole and the ultimate ob- 
ject of God in this great work, there would pro- 
bably have been no difference no rindividual 
peculiarity with respect to these benefits, nor 
should we have had such admonitions addressed 
to us as the following: ‘ Many are called, but 
few are chosen;”’ ** work out your own salvation 
with fear and trembling;’’ “do all diligence to 
make your calling and election sure.” But Christ 
gave himself for us, not only to redeem us from 
the punishment due to iniquity, but also that he 
might purify to himself a peculiar people zealous 
of good works. The subjects of his kingdom 
were to be those in whose hearts the truth dwelt, 
the great truth relating to the character of God. 
This truth was developed and exhibited in the 
atonement,—its bright rays were concentrated 
there; and therefore the intelligent belief of the 
atonement, was the most proper channel through 
which this divine light might enter the soul of 
man. It is this light alone which can chase away 
the shades of moral darkness, and restore life 
and spiritual vigour to the numbed and bewilder- 
ed faculties. And therefore the benefits of the 
atonement are connected with a belief of the 
atonement. ‘* He that believeth shall be saved: 


89 


he that believeth not shall be condemned.” When 
the identity of unhappiness and moral darkness in 
an intelligent subject of God’s government is fully 
understood, this connection between belief and 
salvation, will appear to be not the appointment 
of a new enactment, but merely the renewed de- 
claration of an established and necessary constitu- 
tion. The truth concerning God’s character is 
an immortal and glorious principle, developed 
and laid up in Jesus Christ; and God imparts its 
immortality and glory to the spirits in which it 
dwells. This truth can not dwell in us, except 
in so far as the work of Christ remains as a re- 
ality in our minds, We. can not enjoy the spirit- 
ual life and: peace of the atonement, separated 
from the believing remembrance of the atone- 
ment, as we can not enjoy the light of the sun se- 
parated from the presence of the sun. It would 
be a foolish madness to think of locking in the 
light by shutting our casements; and it is no less 
foolish to dream of appropriating the peace of the 
gospel, whilst the great truth of the gospel is not 
in the eye of faith. In the:Epistle to the Gala- 
tians, Vth. 25th, St. Paul says, if ye have your 
life from the gospel, (here called the Spirit), see 
that you walk in, i. e. keep close to, the gospel. 
When our hearts stray from the truth, we stray 
from that life which is contained in the truth. 
We can not long continue orretain any moral im- 
H 2 


90 


pression on our minds separate from the object 
which is fitted to produce the impression. 

The man who sees in the atonement, a deli- 
verance from ruin, and a pledge of immortal 
bliss, will rejoice in it, and in all the principles 
which it develops, ‘‘ Let not the wise man,” 
says the prophet, “ glory or rejoice in his wis- 
dom, neither let the mighty man rejoice in his 
might, let not the rich man rejoice in his riches; 
but let him that rejoiceth, rejoice in this, that he 
understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the 
Lord which exercise loving kindvess, judgment, 
and righteousness in the earth; for in these things 
I delight, saith the Lord.” He therefore who 
rejoices in the atonement, rejoices in that which 
delights the heart of God; for here have his 
loving kindness, and his judgment, and his 
righteousness, been most fully and most glori- 
ously exercised. It is thus that the believer has 
communion with God through Jesus Christ. and 
it is thus that he becomes conformed to his 
moral likeness, The same truth which gives 
peace, produces also holiness, What a view 
does the cross of Christ give of the depravity of 
man, and of the guilt of sin! And must not the 
abhorrence of it be increased ten fold, by the 
consideration that it has been committed against 
the God of all grace and of all consolation? A 
sense of our interest would keep us close to that 
Saviour, in whom our life is treasured up, if we 
needed such a motive to bind us to a Benefactor 


= 


91 


who chose to bear the wrath of Omnipotence 
rather than that we should bear it. Shall! we 
frustrate the designs of love by our own undoing, 
and trample on that sacred blood which was shed 
for us? No; tf we believe in the atonement, we 
must love him who made the atonement; and if 
we love him, we shall enter into his views, we 
shall feel forthe honour of God, we shall feel for 
the souls of men, we shall loath sin especially in 
our own hearts, we shall look forward with an 
-asheunatengytn expectation to the period when the 
mystery of God shall be finished, and the spiritu- 
al temple completed, and the Redeemer’s tri- 
umph fulfilled. This hope we have as an anchor 
of the soul sure and steadfast; itvs:fixed within 
the veil; itlooks to the atonement; and-whatever 
be the afflictions or the trials of life, it can still 
rejoice in that voice which whispers from the in- 
ner sanctuary, ‘“* Be of good cheer, it is I, be not 
afraid;” it can still feel the force of that reason- 
ing, « Hethat spared not his own Son, but gave 
him up for us all, how sball he not with bim 
freely also give us all things?” This hope maketh 
not ashamed, it will not and can not disappoint, - 
because itis founded on the character of that 
God who changeth not. 
It is thus that the faith of the gospel produces 
that revolution in the mind, which is called, in 
Scripture, conversion, or the new birth. A man 
naturally trusts to something within himself, to 


92: 


his prudence, or to his good fortune, or to his 
worth, or to his acquirements, or to what he has 
done well, or to his unfeigned sorréw for what 
he has done ill; self, in one form or cther more or 
less amiable, is the foundation of his hope, and 
by necessary consequence, self is ever present to 
his view, and becomes the ultimate ebject of his 
conduct, and the director and the former of his 
character, But when he believes and under- 
stands the truth of God as manifested in the: 
atonement, to be the only foundation on which he 
can rest with safety, the only refuge from that 
ruin into which he has been led by the guidance 
of self, he will cast from him these perishing 
and fluctuating delusions, and he will repose his 
interests for time and for eternity on the love of 
him who bled for him, and on the faithfulness of 
him who is not aman that he should lie, nor the 
son of man that he should repent; and resting 
thus on the character of God as the exclusive 
ground of his confidence, he will contemplate it 
as his ultimate object, he will cleave to it as his 
counsellor and his guide, and will thus be gra- 
dually moulded into its likeness, This founda- 
tion of hope continues the same through every 
stage of the Christian’s progress. ‘Though his 
growth in personal sanctity be the grand and 
blessed result of his faith, yet that sanctity can’ 
never become the ground of his confidence with- 
out throwing him back upon self, and separating 


93 

him from God, and cutting off his supply from the 
living fountain of boliness, and thus unsanctify- 
ing him. But although personal sanctity can ne- 
ver become the foundation of hope, yet it will 
much strengthen our confidence in that founda- 
tion; just as returning health strengthens the 
confidence of the patientin that medicine which 
he feels restoring him. 

It is a Jaw of our moral constitution, that the 
foundation of our confidence becomes necessarily 
the mould of our characters. The principles de- 
veloped in the atonement, are an assemblage of 
all that is lovely and notile and admirable in spi- 
ritual excellence. He, then, that truly and ex- 
clusively rests his hope on the atonement, be- 
comes a partaker of the character of God. The 
great argument for the truth of Christianity lies 
in the sanctifying influence of its doctrines; and, 
alas! the great argument against it, lies in the un- 
sanctified lives of its professors. A false exhi- 
bition of Christianity is thus more pernicious and 
more hateful than professed infidelity. But false 
pretences are not confined to religion; and that 
man is indeed a fool who throws away his soul 
because another man is a hypocrite. The gos- 
pel claims and deserves an examination on its 
own merits, and well will it repay the candid 
examiner. It warns of a danger, the reality of 
which is inseparably connected with the admit- 
ted holiness of God, and the admitted sinfulness 


94 


of man; it discovers a refuge from this: danger, 
which most beautifully harmonizes with all the 
Divine perfections; and when that refuge is nar- 
rowly considered, it is found not only to be a 
place of safety, but to be the entrance into a holy 
and blessed and glorious immortality. Like the 
Upas tree, it invites the weary and heavy laden 
to its shelter; but, unlike the Upas tree, it dis- 
pels their languor, and restores their fainting spi- 
rits, and gives a new and a vigorous and an en- 
livening impulse to every organ of their debili- 
tated frames; its leaves are for the healing of the 
nations, and its fruit is the bread of life. 

Let us now return to the questions with which 
we commenced these observations; viz. What 
view does this doctrine give of the character of 
God? and, What influence is the belief of it fitted 
to exercise on the character of man? and let us, 
from the statement which has been given, draw 
out the answers. Love surpassing thought is cer- 
tainly the prominent feature of that glorious cha- 
racter which is exhibited to us in the atonement; 
—but it is a love in perfect consistency with a 
holiness which can not look upon iniquity,—it is 
the love of the almighty God, who has not exert- 
ed:his omnipotence in silencing or overstepping 
the claims of justice, but in meeting them and 
fulfilling them, It is a love—which sits enthroned 
on that mercy-seat which rests on eternal truth,— 
and whose very nature it is to hate all evil. The 


95 


effect upon the character of man, produced by 
the belief of it, will be to love Him who first 
loved us, and to put the fullest confidence in his 
goodness and willingness to forgive—to associate 
sin with the ideas both of the deepest misery and 
the basest ingratitude—to admire the unsearcha- 
ble wisdom and the high principle which have 
combined the fullest mercy with the most un- 
compromising justice—and to love all our fellow- 
creatures from the consideration that: our com- 
mon Father has taken such an interest in their 
welfare, and from the thought, that as we have 
been all shipwrecked in the same sea by the 
same wide-wasting tempest, so we are all in- 
vited by the same gracious voice to take refuge in 
the same haven of eternal rest. 

It might seem scarcely possible that this sim- 
ple doctrine should -be misapprehended; and yet 
from the unaccountable and most unfortunate 
propensity to look for religious information any- 
where rather than in the Bible, it has been per- 
verted in a variety of ways, according to the tem- 
pers of those who have speculated on it. It has 
been sometimes so incautiously stated, as to give 
ground to cavillers for the charge that the Chris- 
tian scheme represents God’s attribute of justice 
as utterly at variance with every moral principle. 
The allegation has assumed a form somewhet 
resembling this, “ that, according to Christianity, 
{Zod indeed apportions to every instance and de- 


96 


gree of transgression its proper punishment; but 
that, while be rigidly exacts this punishment, he 
is not much concerned whether the person who 
pays it be the real criminal or an innocent being, 
provided only that it is a full equivalent; nay, 
that he is under a strange necessity to cancel 
guilt whenever this equivalent of punishment is 
tendered to him by. whatever hand. This per- 
version has arisen from the habit among some 
writers on religion of pressing too far the analo- 
gy between acrime and a pecuniary debt. Itis 
not surprisng, that any one who entertains sucha 
view of the subject, should reject Christianity as 
a revelation of the God of holiness and goodness. 
But this is not the view given inthe Bible. The 
account which the Bible gives of the matter is 
this, ‘“‘ Herein is love,—not that we loved God, 
but that God loved us, and sent his Son to bea 
propitiation for our sins;” and God set forth Jesus 
Christ, ‘‘ to declare his righteousness,”? Any 
view of the doctrine which is inconsistent with 
this account, is a perversion of Scripture, for 
which the perverters are themselves. responsible, 
and not the Bible. The error consists in sepa- 
rating the actions of God from the intention ma- 
nifested in them towards men. Were such a 
view, however, of the Divine Being, as that 
which has been just mentioned, actually and ful- 
ly believed by any man of an ordinary construc- 
tion of mind, it would assuredly produce very 


97 


strange and very melancholy results. He would 
learn from it to considerthe connection between 
sin and misery, not as a necessary connection but 
as an arbitrary one, which might be dissolved, 
and had been dissolved by the authority of mere 
power. Thus he could not identify in his thoughts 
and feelings misery with sin,—which is one of 
the prominent lessons of the Bible. He could 
see nothing in the character of God either vene- 
rable orlovely. And even the restraint of fear 
would be removed by the idea, that a penalty 
had been already paid of greater price than any 
debt of crime which he bad contracted, or could 
contract. His heart could find in this doctrine 
no constraining power urging him to the fulfil- 
ment of the great commandments of love to God 
and man. In fact, this doctrine undermines the 
divinity of Christ as much as Socinianism, inas- 
much as it makes a separation between the views 
and character of the Father and those of the Son. 

There is another view of this doctrine, which, 
though less revolting to the feelings than that 
which I have just stated, is quite as inconsistent 
with reason. According to it, the atonement is 
a scheme by which God has mitigated the strict 
purity of his law; so that those who live under 
the gospel are merely required to yield an imper- 
fect but sincere obedience, instead of that perfect 
obedience to which they were bound before they 
professed the faith of Christ. Now, let it be re- 

I 


98 


membered, that the love of God with all the heart 
constitutes the substance of the law which we 
are called on to obey; and let it also be remem- 
bered, that the sacrifice of Christ was made not 
only as a vindication of God’s justice in pro- 
claiming pardon to the guilty, but also for the 
purpose of presenting to the human keart, an ob- 
ject most worthy, and most admirably fitted to 
attract all its love; and then it will appear, that 
those who give this interpretation of the doctrine, 
do in fact maintain, that God dispenses with our 
giving him our full love, on condition that we are 
convinced that he deserves this full love at our 
hands. The whole end and scope of religion is 
lost sight of in this interpretation. Christ gave 
himself for us, to redeem us from all iniquity, and 
to purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of 
good works. A perfect conformity to the will of 
God, is not only perfect obedience—it is also 
perfect happiness; and that gracious Father who 
calls on his creatures to be holy as he is holy, 
calls on them, by the very same exhortation, to 
be happy as he is happy. To dispense with 
our obedience, is not merey, to us; for it is in 
truth to dispense with our happiness. We are 
not received into the favour of God at all on the 
ground of our own deservings, but on the ground 
of the satisfaction made to Divine justice by the 
death of Christ as the representative of sinners; 
and the belief of this mercy, by its natural ope- 


99 


ration, gradually subdues the heart to the love 
and the obedience of God. Perfect obedience, 
then, though it is required, and though it is in- 
dispensable to perfect happiness, is not the foun- 
dation of our hope for eternity: It is the object of 
our hope, not the foundation of it. We must be 
trained up to it by the faith of the gospel. It is 
never attained here in its blessed fulness; and 
therefore perfect happiness is never attained: 
But the seed of it may be attained, and may take 
‘root in the heart; and it has an eternity before it, 
to grow and flourish in. An imperfect but sin- 
cere obedience, will almost always mean in the 
human judgment, that degree of obedience which 
it is convenient to pay;—and this degree is paid, 
by all men. The real glory of Christianity is 
thus extinguished, because the standard of mo- 
ral duty is lowered. True humility can have no 
place in this system, because we limit our duty 
by our performance. And gratitude for unde- 
served mercy is excluded, except that base gra- 
titude which thanks God for permitting us to be 
unholy. God’s mercy is a holy mercy: It pardons, 
but never sanctions imperfection. 

There is another view of this subject, certainly 
not very uncommon amongst those who call them- 
selves Christians, which is as subversive of the 
principle and efficiency of the gospel as either of 
those mentioned above. According to this scheme, 
it is supposed that our hope before God rests on 


100 


a ground made up partly of our own obedience, 
and partly of the atoning efficacy of Christ’s sa- 
crifice. The work of the Saviour is thus madea 
supplement to the deficiencies of human merit; 
and this supplement is conceived to be added as 
a sort of reward for diligent obedience. The de- 
cent, and orderly, and well-behaved member of 
society, is thus considered to have a just though 
an undefined claim toa participation in the bene- 
fits of the Redeemer’s death, whilst the utterly 
abandoned and profligate is considered unworthy, 
in his present state, of approaching the cross of 
Christ, and is therefore recommended to reform, 
that he mavbring himself into a condition which 
may entitle him to do this with a reasonable hope 
of acceptance. There is a looseness and a vague- 
ness generally attached to the ideas of that 
class of nominal believers to which J refer, that 
makes it difficult to meet or to answer their the- 
ories; but Tamsure that I may confidently appeal 
to many, whether the statement which has been 
given does not bear a very near resemblance to 
some views of the doctrine of the atonement with 
which they are well acquainted. 

The proper answer to these views, when held 
by one who really assents to the inspiration of the 
Bible, is, that they are at direct variance with the 
Bible. Paul says that justification is declared to 
be of faith, for this very reason, that it might be 
gratuitous, and that all boasting on the part of 


101 


man might be excluded, &c.; ‘‘ not by works of 
righteousness which we have done, but of his 
mercy he saved us.” And when the Jews, who 
seemed to have prejudices closely allied to those 
which we are examining, reproached Christ as 
the friend of publicans and sinners, he answered 
them, that his business was with sinners; ‘ that 
the whole needed not a physician, but they that 
were sick,” and “ that he came to seek and to 
save that which was lost.” 

According to the revealed record, then, that 
combination of justice and of mercy which was 
manifested on the cross, is the exclusive ground 
of hope before God,—and on this ground every 
one is invited to rest, in the. character of a lost 
sinner, without delay, and without any fruitless 
and presumptuous attempts to attain a previous 
worthiness. 

It may appear to some, that this is a question 
rather about words than things; but, in fact, it 
goes to the very root of the Christian character. 
Is it not evident, that upon this system there can 
be no true humility? because, as we know that 
that portion of our hope which rests upon Christ 
is already fixed, and therefore not liable to 
change, our attention is naturally and necessarily 
‘drawn almost entirely to the remaining portion, 
which is to be made out by ourselves, and which 
is therefore liable to be changed. Our own do-: 
ings and deservings become thus the chief ob-: 

12 


102 


jects of our thought. And, let me ask, what are 
the moral impressions which such objects are 
fitted to make on the character? If falsely viewed 
as really worthy titles to the favour of God, they 
can produce no impressions but those of self- 
conceit and self-confidence; and if rightly and 
truly appreciated, they can produce nothing but 
apprehension or despair. ‘The beauty of the 
Christian revelation consists in this, that the 
same object which gives peace to the conscience, 
produces contrition of heart, and is also the most 
powerful stimulant to holy and grateful obedi- 
ence. The work of Christ is the sole ground of 
hope, and is therefore the chief object of thought; 
and the impressions emanating from this object 
sum up-the Christian character. If I might ven- 
ture on such a subject, to allude to the profane 
mythology of Greece, I think that an illustration 
of this might be drawn from the fabled contest 
between Hercules and Anteus. Anteus was 
the son of the earth, and whenever he touched 
the earth, fresh vigour was communicated to 
him, Those blows therefore which he sustained 
from his adversary, and which in other circum: 
stances would have destroyed him, were to him 
the means of increasing his strength, because 
they brought him into nearer contact with the 
earth; which was the source of his strength The 
ground on which he rested was the stimulus of 
his exertions. When. the. Christian has appre- 


103 


hensions for his safety, he looks to the ground of 
his hope, and there he finds not only peace but 
vigour, 

But the whole of this. erroneous view of the 
doctrine rests on a false notion with regard to the 
purpose of the gospel. The gospel addresses 
men as rebels diseased by sin, and already con- 
demned. The salvation which it offers is most 
strikingly explained by the prophet Jeremiah, 
chap. xxxi. 31, and three following verses. It con- 
sists in a spiritual character: “I will put my 
law in their inward parts, and write it in their 
hearts;” and the mighty instrument by which 
this effect is to be accomplished is pointed out in 
the end of the 34th verse, ** for I will forgive 
their iniquity, and FE will remember their sin no 
more,” That is, the circumstances and the man- 
ner in which this pardon is to be proclaimed, 
shall attract the hearts of men to the love and 
the obedience of God. Salvation, then, means 
the holy love of God,—a holy obedience of heart, 
arising from a belief of that mercy which is pro- 
claimed in the gospel. Salvation and obedience 
mean precisely the same thing; and it is as ab- 
surd to say that a man is saved by obedience, as 
to say, that a man is restored to health by getting 
well. We are not called on to obey, in order to 
obtain pardon; but we are called on to believe 
the proclamation of pardon, in order that we may 
obey. ‘The gospel is said to be the power of 


104 


God unto salvation to every one that believeth;” 
and why? ‘ Because God’s method of justifica- 
tion is revealed in it to be by faith,” Rom. 1. 16, 
17. Ido believe that many preach a different 
doctrine, from a notion that the true gospel offer 
of free unconditional pardon is unfavourable to 
practical obedience and holiness, But, in fact, 
there is nothing acknowledged by the Bible to be 
obedience or holiness which does not spring from 
the belief of this free, undeserved mercy. The 
attempt at obedience without this, is a most 
thankless labour,—it is never successful—and 
even were it successful, it would be the obedi- 
ence of the hand and not of the heart. It is as 
if we chose to move the index of a clock with 
the finger, instead of winding it up. The lan- 
guage of the gospel is, ‘* You shall be ashamed 
and confounded, because I am pacified towards 
you for all vour iniquities.” This plan of paci- 
fication wrought out by God himself, is the great 
subject of the Bible; and the proclamation of 
this free pardon is the preaching of the gospel; 
and he who, in his system of teaching, does not 
hold this up in its proper pre-eminence, is nota 
preacher of the gospel of Christ. He lays aside 
that weapon of ethereal temper which God has 
chosen out of the armoury of heaven, and which 
he blessed and sanctified for the destruction of 
nioral evil, and goes forth to encounter the pow- 
ers of darkness without a single well-grounded 


105 


hope of success. And I am confident—that this’ 
same doctrine of free grace, if it could be can- 
didly viewed as a mere abstract question in 
moral science, would compel the approbation of 
a true philosopher,—and that the compromise or 
mutilation of it (which is less uncommon than 
the value of souls would lead us to desire) is not 
more opposed to the authority of the word of 
God, than it is to the principles of sound reason. 

This subject has been already illustrated by 
examples drawn from human life. I shall now 
therefore vary the view of it, by considering it 
in connection with the rite of sacrifice. 

The same trath with regard to the character 
of God and the condition of man, which is so 
fully developed in the New Testament, is exbibit- 
ed also in the Old through an obscurer medium, 
_ a medium of types and shadows and prophecy, 
When the Messiah was promised to our First 
Parents, the memory and the principle of the 
promise were embodied in the institution of sa- 
crifice. Sensible objects were necessary, in or- 
der to recal to the thoughts, and to explain to the 
understanding of man, the spiritual declarations 
of God. Under the Jewish economy, this insti- 
tution was enlarged and diversified; but still it 
pointed to the same fact, and illustrated the same 
principle, The fact was, the death of Christ for 
the sins of the world; the principle was, that God 
is at once just and merciful, and that these at- 


106 


tributes of his nature are in joint and harmonious 
operation. Multitudes, probably both of the 
Jews and of those who lived before the Mosaic 
system, recognised in their sacrifices that future 
salvation which was to be wrought out by the 
promised seed; but a far greater number must be 
supposed to have stopped short at the rite, through 
want of spiritual discernment. When the pre- 
figured fact was thus forgotten, let us consider 
whether the moral principle exhibited in the cere- 
mony might not still in some measure be under- 
stood, and affect the character of the devout 
worshipper. The full vindication of God’s holi- 
ness, and of the truth of his denunciations against 
sin, could indeed rest onlv on the sacrifice of the 
Divine Saviour; but although those who saw this 
great thing through the types which partially ob- 
scured whilst they represented it, could alone re- 
ceive the full benefits of the institution, shall we 
think that those who did not enter into the spirit 
of prophecy, were entirely excluded from the 
operation of its principle, and saw nothing of the 
Divine character manifested in it? As the prose- 
cution of this inquiry may tend to throw greater 
light on some views which have been already 
given, I shall here consider the subject of sacri- 
fice apart altogether from its prophetic import, 
This view of the matter simply regards those 
particulars which rendered the rite of sacrifice 
a fitemblem of the atonement of Christ, When 


107 


God teaches by emblems, he chuses such em- 
blems as are naturally caleulated to impress the 
principle of the antitype upon our minds, There 
is then a suitableness in animal sacrifices, to give 
some idea of that great truth which was so glo- 
riously developed in the work of the Saviour, 
when the fulness of time had arrived. Let us 
consider, then, wherein consists this suitable- 
ness. What is the meaning of a sacrifice? 
What is the purpose of killing a poor animal, be- 
cause a man has sinned? Can it be supposed 
that a wise and good God will in reality make a 
transference of the guilt of the man to the head 
of the beast?—Impossible; and it is equally im- 
possible to conceive that God should command 
his creatures to do a thing which they could not 
understand, and by which therefore their charae- 
ters could not be benefited. The institution con- 
tained a great truth, exhibiting God’s character, 
and affecting man’s. ‘The suppliant who came 
with his sacrifice before God, virtually said, 
“Thou hast appointed this rite as the form 
through which thy mercy is declared to sinners: 
and it is indeed in thy mercy alone that I can 
hope, for Ihave deserved this death which I now 
inflict, as the just reward of my transgressions.” 
Thus the mercy and the holiness of God were 
both kept in view by this rite; and gratitude and 
penitence would be impressed to a certain degree 
on the characters of those whose hearts accom: 


108 


panied their hands in the service. This is just 
an exbibition of tbe principle in natural religion, 
that God is gracious, and worthy of our highest 
love; and that sin deserves punishment, and is 
connected with misery. Our gratitude, howev- 
er, for forgiveness would be just in proportion to 
our apprehensions of the demerit of sin and the 
danger connected with it, and also to our idea of 
the interest which God took in our welfare. The 
death of an animal was the only measure of the 
guilt and danger of sin, which these sacrifices 
exhibited; and forgiveness, which seems an easy 
thing where there is nothing to fear from the 
power of the offender, was the only measure of 
the interest which God had taken in our welfare. 
Thus, these sacrifices rather inculcated on the 
worshippers the danger and demerit of sin (and 
this in no very high degree), than the goodness 
of God. The animal which was slain was the 
property of the suppliant; and he might feel the 


; 


loss of it to be a species of atoning penalty, as well — 


as a typical representation of the guilt of sin, 


which would very much diminish bis idea both — 


of God’s free mercy, and of the guilt of sin which 
could be so easily atoned. The sacrifice of a 
man would bave furnished a greater measure of 
guilt; but it could not have impressed on the 
mind any stronger conviction of the graciousness 
of God. If we ascend the scale of being, and 
suppose an incarnate angel to become the vic- 


: 


109 


tim, the measure by which we may estimate the 
guilt of sin increases, to be sure, in a very high 
degree; but still, there is nothing in such a sacri- 
fice which speaks in unequivocal language of 
the exceeding goodness of God. Although the, 
sufferings of the angel were considered to be per- 
fectly voluntary, it would not alter the view of 
God’s character: Our gratitude would indeed be 
called forth by the goodness of the angel; but 
forgiveness still would seem a cheap and easy 
thing on the part of God, whose creative fiat 
could call into existence millions of brighter 
spirits. That God in human nature should him- 
self become the victim, is ascheme which indeed 
outstrips all anticipation, and baffles the utmost 
stretch of our minds when we labour to form an 
idea of perfect benevolence and perfect holiness: 
but yet it is the only scheme which can fully 
meet the double object of strongly attracting our 
love to God, and at the same time of deeply con- 
vincing us of the danger and baseness and in- 
gratitude of sin. This gives us a measure by 
which we may estimate both the Divine good- 
ness and our own guilt. It is indeed an exhibi- 
tion of “ love which passeth knowledge.” But 
yet, when the conscience comes to be fully en- 
lightened, nothing short of this marvellous exhi- 
bition can produce peace. When a man is once 
thoroughly convinced that sin consists in a choice 
of the heart different from the will of God, even 
| % 


110 


although that choice does not vent itself in an 
external action, he must feel that be has accu- 
mulated, through the past days of his life, and 
that he is still daily accumulating, a most fearful 
weight of guilt. A day of retribution approach- 
es, and he must meet God face to face. Asim- 
ple declaration of forgiveness on the part of God, 
would certainly in these circumstances be most 
‘comforting to him; but still it would be difficult 
to persuade him, that the Holy One who inhabit- 
eth eteraity, could look with kindness on a being 
so polluted and so opposite in every respect to 
himself in moral character. Until this persua- 
sion takes hold of his mind, he can neither enjoy 
real peace, nor be animated with that grateful 
love which can alone lead to a more perfect obe- 
dience, The surpassing kindness and tenderness 
demonstrated in the cross of Christ, and the full 
satisfaction there rendered to his violated law, 
when understood and believed, must sweep away 
all doubts and fears with regard to God’s dispo- 
sition towards him, and must awaken in his 
heart that sentiment of grateful and reverential 
attachment which is the spiritual seed of the 
heavenly inheritance. ‘* If, when we were ene- 
mies, we were reconciled to God by the death of 
his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall 
be saved by his living love.” 

It seems to me, that the Scriptural statement 


of this doctrine is in itself the best answer that 
# Las 


‘ 


aS 


111 


can be made to Socinians. If Christ was’ only 
an inspired teacher, his death is of very small 
importance to us; because it gives no demonstra- 
tion of the kindness of God, and therefore can 
neither give peace to a troubled conscience, nor 
excite grateful affection; and also, because it gives 
no high measure of the guilt and danger of sin, 
and therefore can not impress us strongly with a 
sense of its inherent malignity. We thus lose 
the whole benefit of Christianity as a palpable 
exhibition of the Divine character, and are thrown 
back again on the inefficiency and vagueness of 
abstract principles. In this view, likewise, all 
those passages of Scripture in which our gratitude, 
our reverential esteem, and our filial confidence, 
are so triumphantly challenged on the ground of 
the death of Christ, become empty unmeaning 
words: For, if Christ was not God, there is no 
necessary or natural connection between the be- 
lief of his death and the excitement of such sen- 
timents in our hearts towards God; while, on the 
supposition that he was God, the connection is 


most distinct and unavoidable. In fact, if Jesus 


Christ was merely a man, the greatest part of 
the Bible is mere bombast. To a man who dis- 
believes the inspiration of the Bible, this of 
course is no argument, But surely he ought 
not, in a matter of such unspeakable importance, 
to reject a doctrine which may be true, without 
examining it in all its bearings. He ought not 


112 


to take the account of it upon trust, when he has 
the record itself to apply to. He is right to re- 
ject an absurd statement; but he is wrong to de- 
cide without investigation that this absurd state- 
ment is contained in the Bible, Let him consult 
the Bible,—let him consider what this doctrine 
declares of the character of God,---let him trace 
the natural effects of its belief on the character of 
man,—-let him understand that it expands our 
ideas of the Divine holiness by the very demon- 
stration which attracts our love, that it quickens 
the sensitiveness of conscience by the very de- 
monstration which gives peace to the conscience, 
—and he may continue to reject it; but he will 
not deny that there is a reasonableness in it— 
that it contains all the elements of a perfect doc- 
trine—that it is most glorifying to God and most 
suitable to man. ‘To sum up my observations 
on this subject: The doctrine of the atonement, 
by the incarnation and death of Christ, is illus- 
trative of the Divine mercy, and vindicative of 
the Divine holiness; it is a foundation of hope 
before God, amply sufficient for the most guilty 
of men; and it is fitted to implant in the vilest 
heart which wiil receive it, the principles of true 
penitence and true gratitude, of ardent attach- 
ment to the holy character of God, and of a cor- 
dial devotion to his will. 

The hallowed purpose of restoring men to the 
lost image of their Creator, is in fact the very 


113 


soul and spirit of the Bible; and whenever this 
object does not distinctly appear, the whole sys- 
tem becomes dead and useless, In creeds and 
confessions this great purpose is not made to 
stand forth with its real prominency; its intimate 
connection with the different articles of faith is 
not adverted to; the point of the whole argument 
is thus lost, and Christianity is misapprehended 
to be a mere list of mysterious facts. One who 
understands the Bible may read them with profit, 
because his own mind may fill up the deficien- 
cies, and when their statements are correct, they 
may assist inquirers in certain stages, by bring- 
ing under their eye a concentrated view of all 
the points of Christian doctrine, and they may 
serve, according to their contents, either as pub- 
lic invitations to their communion, or as public 
warnings against it, and they may stand as doc- 
trinal landmarks; but they are not calculated to 
impress on the mind of a learner a vivid and 
useful apprehension of Christianity, The object 
in them is not to teach religion, but to defend it; 
and whilst they keep their own place, they are 
beneficial. But any person who draws his know- 
ledge of the Christian doctrines exclusively or 
principally from such sources, must run consid- — 
erable risk of losing the benefit of them, by over- 
looking their moral objects; and, in so doing, he 
may be tempted to reject them altogether, be- 
cause he wiill be blind to their strongest evidence, 
: K2 


114 


which consists in their perfect adaptation’ to 
these objects. The Bible is the only perfectly- 
pure source of Divine knowledge; and the man 
who is unacquainted with it, is in fact ignorant 

of the doctrines of Christianity, however well- 
read he may be in the schemes and systems and 
controversies which have been written on the 
subject. 

The habit of viewing the Christian doctrines 
and the Christian character as two separate 
things, has a most pernicious tendency. A man 
who, in his scheme of Christianity, says, ‘* here 
are.so many things to be believed, and here are 
so many to be done,”’ has already made a funda- 
mental mistake. The doctrines are the pripci- 
ples which must excite and animate the per- 
formance: They are the points from which the 
Jines of conduct flow; and as lines may be sup- 
posd to be formed by the progress of their points, 
or to be drawn out of their substance, so the line 
of Christian conduct is only formed by the pro- 
gressive action of Christian principle, or is drawn 
out of its substance.. 

The doctrines of revelation form a great 
spiritual mould, fitted by Divine wisdom for im- 
pressing the stamp of the Christian character on 
the minds that receive them. I shall here men- 
tion some of the Jeading features of that charac- 
ter, as connected with the corresponding doc- 
trines, 


115 


The love of God is the radical principle of the 
Christian character; and to implant this princi- 
ple, is the grand object and the distinct tendency 
of the Christian doctrines. And it may be 
proper here to repeat an observation which has 
been already much insisted on,—that this love is 
not a vague affection for an ill-defined object, 
but a sentiment of approbation and attachment to 
a distinctly-defined character. The Bible calls 
us to the exercise of this affection, by setting be- 
fore us a history of the uaspeakable mercy of 
God towards man. At first sight, it might seem 
impossible to conceive any way in which the 
mercy of God could:be very strikingly or affect- 
ingly manifested towards his creatures. His 
omnipotence and unbounded sovereignty make 
every imaginable gift cheap and easy to him. 
‘The pardon of the sins committed by such feeble 
worms, seems no great stretch of compassion in 
so great and so unassailable a monarch. God 
knew the heart of man. He knew that such 
would be his reasonings; and he prepared a work 
of mercy, which might in all points meet these 
conceptions. God so loved the world that he 
gave his only-begotten Son for its salvation. His 
was not the benevolence which gives an unmissed 
mite out of a boundless store,—it was a self-sa- 
crificing benevolence, which is but meagerly 
shadowed forth by any earthly comparison. We 
admire Codrus sacrificing his life for his country; 


116 


we admire the guide plunging into the quicksand 
to warn and save his companions; we admire the 
father suffering the sentence of his own law in the 
stead of his son; we admire Regulus submitting 
to voluntary torture for the glory of Rome: But 
the goodness of God, in becoming man, and suf- 
fering, the just for the unjust, that he might de- 
monstrate to them the evil of sin,—that he might 
attract their affections to his own character, and 
thus induce them to follow him in the way of hap- 
piness,—was a goodness as much superior to any 
human goodness, as God is above man, or as the 
eternal happiness of the soul is above this fleet- 
ing existence; and, if believed, must excite a 
proportionate degree of admiration and gratitude. 

The active and cordial love of our fellow-crea- 
tures is the second Christian duty. And can this 
sentiment be more powerfully impressed upon us, 
than by the fact, that Christ’s blood was shed for 
them as well as for ourselves; and by the con- 
sideration that this blood reproaches us with the 
basest ingratitude, when we feel or act malicious- 
ly, or even slightingly, towards those in whom 
our heavenly Benefactor took so deep an inte- 
rest? Under the sense of our Lord’s continual 
presence, we shail endeavour to promote even 
their temporal welfare; but above all, we shall be 
earnest for the good of their souls, which he died 
to redeem. 

Christians are commanded to mortify the 


117 


earthly and selfish passions of ambition and ava- 
rice and sensuality. Our Lord died that he 
might redeem us from such base thraldom, and 
allure us to the pure liberty of the sons of God. 
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the 
pride of life, were in fact his murderers, If we 
love him, we must hate them: If we love our own 
peace, we must hate them; for they separate the 
soul from the Prince of Peace. The happiness 
of eternity consists in a conformity to the God of 
holiness; and shall we spend our few days in 
confirming ourselves in habits directly opposed 
to him’—No; rather let us begin heaven below, 
by beginning to he holy. 

The gospel exhorts us to humility; and deep 
humility, indeed, must be the result of a true ac- 
quiescence in the judgment which God passed 
upon us when he condemned his Son as the re- 
presentative of our race. And when we think 
of what our Almighty Father hath done for us, 
our hearts must often convict us of the strange 
contrast which is exhibited betwixt our dealings 
with him and his dealings with us, 

We are commanded to be diligent in the du- 
ties of life, and to be patient under its sufferings, 
And to enforce this precept, we are instructed 
that the minutest event of life is ordered by him 
_who loved us and gave himself for us; and that 
all these events, how trifling or how calamitous 
soever they may appear, are yet necessary parts 


118 


of a great plan of spiritual education, by which 
he trains his people to his own likeness, and fits 
them for their heavenly inheritance. He walked 
himself by the same road; only it was rougher; 
and he hath shown us by his example, that the 
cross is a step to glory. 

The Scriptures teach, that the sentence of 
death falls upon all mankind, in consequence of 
the transgression of the first individual; and that 
eternal life is bestowed on account of the perfect 
obedience of Jesus Christ. The grand moral 
purpose for which this doctrine is introduced, is 
to impress upon our minds a sense of the punish- 
ment due to transeression—of the exceeding op- 
position which exists between sin and happiness, 
and of the exceeding harmony which subsists 
between perfect holiness and eternal glory. The 
death of a single individual could give no ade- 
quate manifestation of the pernicious nature of © 
sin. Death appears sometimes rather as a bless- 
ing than an evil; and in general no moral lesson 
is received from it, except the vanity of earthly 
things. But when a single offence is presented 
to us, and there is appended to it the extinction 
of a whole race as its Jegitimate consequence, we 
can not evade the conviction of its inherent ma- 
lignity. As the value of this lesson, if really re- 
ceived, infinitely overbalances in the accounts of 
eternity the loss of this brief mode of our exist- 


119 


ence, there can be no just ground of complaint 
against the great Disposer of all things. 

In the same way, the hope of eternal life 
through the obedience of Christ, suggests to us 
the idea of the strong love and approbation which 
God feels for moral perfection, and the indisso- 
luble connection in the nature of things between 
happiness and holiness. 

The Divine government in this respect is just 
a vivid expression of the great moral attribute of 
God, “that he loveth righteousness, and hateth 
iniquity.” A simple pardon, bestowed without 
any accompanying circumstances, must have 
drawn some degree of gratitude from the crimi- 
nal, ifhe knew his danger; and this would have 
been all: But when he views the perfect and 
holy obedience of a great benefactor as_ the 
ground of his pardon, he is induced to look with 
love and admiration towards that obedience 
which gained the Divine favour, as well as to- 
wards the friend who paid it. A feeling of hum- 
ble and affectionate dependence on the Saviour, 
a dread and hatred of sin, and a desire after ho- 
liness, are the natural fruits of the belief of this 
doctrine. 

That plan of the Divine government by which 
God deals with men through a representative, 
occupies an important place in revealed religion. 
In the observations which I have here made on 
this subject, as well as through the whole course 


120 


of the Treatise, I have in a great measure con- 
fined my remarks to the direct connection which 
subsists between the doctrines of the Bible, and 
the character which the belief of them is fitted 
to produce in the mind of man: And with this 
view, I have called the attention of the reader 
principally to the superiority in real efficiency 
which palpable facts, as illustrative of moral 
principles, possess over a statement of the same 
principles when in an unembodied and abstract 
form: But I should be doing a real injury to the 
cause which I wish to advocate, were I to be the 
means of conducting any. one to the conclusion, 
that Christianity is nothing more than a beauti- 
ful piece of moral mechanism, or that its doc- 
trines were mere typical emblems of the moral 
principles in the Divine mind, well adapted to 
the understandings and feelings of men. Sup- 
posing the history of Codrus to be true, he was 
under a moral necessity to act as he did, inde- 
pendently of any intention to infuse the spirit of — 
patriotism into his countrymen; and, supposing 
the Bible to be true, God was under the moral 
necessity of his own character, to act as he is 
there represented to have done. The acts there 
ascribed to him are real acts, not parabolical 
pictures: They were not only fitted and intended 
to impress the minds of his creatures-—they were 
also the necessary results and the true vindica- 
tions of his own character, This belief is in- 


121 


separably connected with a belief of the reality 
of Christ’s sufferings: and if Christ’s sufferings 
were not real, we may give up the Bible. These 
sufferings are the foundation of a Christian’s 
hope before God, not only because he sees in 
them a most marvellous proof of the Divine love, 
but also because ‘he sees in them the sufferings 
of the representative of sinners. He sees the de- 
nunciations of the law fulfilled, and the bitter 
cup of indignation allotted to apostacy drained to 
the very dregs; and he thus perceives that God 
is just even when justifying the guilty. The 
identity of the Judge and the victim dispels the 
misty ideas of blind vindictiveness with which 
this scheme may sometimes have been perversely 
enveloped; and he approaches God with the 
humble yet confident assurance that he will fa- 
vourably receive all who come to him in the 
name of Christ. Whilst he continues in this 
world, he will remember that the link which 
binds heaven and earth together is unbroken, 
and that his great Represeatative does not in 
the midst of glory forget what he felt when he 
was a man of sorrows below. This relation to 
the Saviour will spiritualize the affections of the 
believer, and raise him above the afflictions of 
mortality; and will produce in him a conformity 
to the character of Christ, which is another name 
for the happiness of heaven. 

I have hitherto been considering the Christian 

L 


122 


doctrines chiefly as facts embodying the prinei- 
sles of the Divine character; but this spiritual 
union with the Saviour, as the head and repre- 
sentative of his people, gives to his religion @ 
deeper interest and a sublimer and more unearth- 
ly character than could be excited or expressed 
by the highest views of holy and gracious worth, 
even in its more glorious aud most lovely opera- 
tion. We know something of what his official 
employment is in the sanctuary above; we know 
something of his glory and of his joy: And shall 
we not, even in this vale of tears, endeavour to 
enter into his holy desires, and sympathize with 
his affections, and triumph in his universal do- 
minion?—He once suffered for us—He now 
reigns for us. His people were once represent- 
ed on the cross at Calvary, and they are now re- 
presented on the throne of Heaven. 

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is also con- 
nected with most important moral consequences. 
He is represented as dictating originally the re- 
veaied word, and as still watching and assisting 
its progress. He is where the truth is, and he 
dwells in the hearts where it operates. The 
‘general idea of the omnipresence of God is 
chiefly connected with the belief of his provi- 
dence and protection, his approving or condemn- 
ing; but the doctrine of the Spirit is connected 
in the minds of Christians simply with a belief — 
of his accompanying and giving weight and au- 


™~ 


123 


thority to revealed truth. The truth becomes 
thus closely associated in their minds with a 
sense of the presence and the gracious solicitude 
of God, | 

With regard to the mode of the operation of 
the Holy Spirit on the human mind, the Bible 
says nothing;—it simply testifies the fact. To 
this divine agent we are directed to apply, for 
the enlightening of the eyes of our understanding, 
for strength in the inner man, and for all the 
Christian qualities. These effects are in other 
places of Scripture referred to the influence of 
revealed truth itself. We are also told, that the 
Spirit takes of the things relating to Christ, and 
presents them to the soul, We may gather from 
this, that the Spirit never acts, except through 
the medium of the doctrines of the Bible, He 
uses them as instruments naturally fitted for the 
work. He does not produce the love of God, 
except by the instrumentality of that divine truth 
which testifies of the moral excellency and kind- 
ness of God. He does not produce humility, but 
through the medium of that truth which declares 
the extent and spirituality of the requirements of 
God’s law. This doctrine, then, does not in the 
slightest degree invalidate the argument in favour 
of revelation, which has been deduced from the 
natural connection between believing its doc- 
trines and obeying its precepts. These doctrines 
would of themselves persuade and sanctify a 


124 


spirit which was not by inclination opposed to 
their tendency, This divine agent does not ex- 
cite feelings or emotions in the mind, indepen- 
dent of reason or an intelligible cause: The 
whole matter of the Bible is addressed to the 
reason, and its doctrines are intelligible causes of 
certain moral effects on the characters of those 
who believe them. The Spirit of God brings 
these causes to act upon the mind with their na- 
tural innate power. This influence, then, is 
quite different from that inspiration by which 
prophéts were enabled to declare future events. 
{t is an influence which probably can never be 
distinguished, in our consciousness, from the in- 
nate influence of argument or motive. A firm- 
minded man, unused to the melting mood, may 
on a particular occasion be moved and excited 
by a tale of wo far beyond his common state of 
feeling: His friends may wonder at an agitation 
so unusual; they may ask him how this story 
has affected him more than other stories of a 
similar nature; but he will not be able to give 
any other reason than what is contained in the 
distressing facts which he had been listening to. 
His greater susceptibility in this instance might 
have originated from some change in his bodily 
temperament, or from certain trains of thought 
which had previously been passing through his 
mind: But these circumstances did not make the 
impression; they only made him more fit to re- 


125 
ceive the impression from -an object which was 
naturally calculated to make it. The impres- 
sion was entirely made by the story,—just as 
the impression upon wax is entirely made by the 
seal, although heat may be required to fit it for 
receiving the impression. 

I have used this illustration to show that the 
influence of the Spirit does not necessarily de- 
stroy, and is not necessarily independent of, that 
natural relation of cause and effect which sub- 
sists between the doctrines taught and the moral 
character recommended by the Bible. 

When the prophet Elisha was surrounded in 
Dothan by the Syrian army, he felt no fear, be- 
cause he placed full confidence in the protec- 
tion of God. But his servant was terrified by 
the appearance of inevitable ruin. It pleased 
God, however, to deliver him at once from his 
agitation and perplexity, even before he thought 
it to remove the appearance of the danger. And 
how was this effected? God opened the young 
man’s eyes, and he saw and beheld the moun- 
tain was full of horses and chariots of fire round 
about Elisha. God here interposed miraculous- 
ly, in order to calm the man’s spirit. But mark 
the nature of the interposition; God dealt with 
the man as a reasonable Being,—he gave him 
ocular demonstration of his safety. He did not 
work in his mind an unaccountable intrepidity 
in the face of danger which he could not have 

L 2 


126 


explained, but discovered to him a fact, which, 
from the nature of the human mind, could not 
fail of dispellimg his fearful apprehensions. Had 
he given full credit to the assurances of his mas- 
ter, his mind would have been at peace without 
the interposition of this supernatural revelation. 
But although he acknowledged his master to be 
a prophet, yet he did not place that implicit re- 
liance on his testimony which was sufficient to 
overcome the violent excitement produced in his 
mind by the visible objects of terror which sur- 
rounded him. When his eyes were opened, he 
saw and believed; and this belief brought peace. 
It was not the miraculous interposition abstractly, 
which produced this effect; it was the glorious 
army of guardian angels, miraculously unveiled 
to his eye, which inspired him with confidence, 
and enabled him to despise the Syrian power: 
If, instead of these friendly hosts, he had seen 
the angel whom David saw with a sword drawn 
over Jerusalem, the sight would only have i.- 
creased his alarm. It is then the object believ- 
ed, from whatever source the belief proceeds, 
whether from seeing or hearing, which operates 
on the mind. 

That the belief of the gospel is, in every in- 
stance, the work of the Holy Spirit, no one who 
believes in the Bible can doubt; and indeed this 
doctrine is the ground of the Christian’s confi- 
dence that he shall continue steadfast unto the 


127 


end: But still it must be remembered, that it is 
not the supernatural agency itself abstractly, 
which gives Christian peace and Christian 
strength to the mind, but the history of the Sa- 
viour’s work, which through this medium is spi- 
ritually revealed to it. The Lord opened the 
heart of Lydia to attend to the things spoken by | 
Paul; If our notions of divine influence lead us 
away from attending to the things contained in 
the gospel, we are deluding ourselves. And on 
the other hand, if our mode of studying the Bible 
does not cultivate in us a conviction of our own 
weakness, and an habitual dependence on the 
operations of the Holy Spirit, we certainly do 
not belong to that society who are said to be 
“all taught of God,” and have no spiritual dis- 
cernment of the truth: When we study the doc- 
trines of revelation, we ought to study them in 
that connection in which they stand in the Bible 
itself. They are not given to us for the purpose 
of exercising our faculties in speculative discus- 
sion, but for practical usefulness. The obser- 
vance of this rule will save us from much per- 
plexity, and many a thorny and agitating ques- 
tion. In the Bible, this doctrine of Divine in- 
fluence which we are now considering, is uni- 
formly connected with the most explicit declara- 
tions, that man is free to act, and responsible for 
his actions. Man’s inability to obey God con- 
sists absolutely in his unwillingness, and is but 


128 


another name for the greatest degree of this. 
There is nothing to prevent him from embracing 
the gospel, and walking in the ways of holiness, 
but his own opposite inclinations, ‘ This is the 
condemnation, that light has come into the 
world, and men have loved darkness rather than 
light, because their deeds are evil,”? John iii. 
19. It is worthy of remark, that our Lord 
makes this statement in that very conversation 
in which he insists on the necessity under which 
every individual lies of being spiritually born 
again, before he can enter the kingdom of God. 
In the gospel, sinners are called upon, not to be 
supernaturally influenced, but to believe the Di- 
vine testimony. And the question at last will 
be, not by what influence or arguments were 
you led to the Saviour, but, did you embrace his 
offered salvation? It is not very uncommon to 
hear religious persons speak of faith and holi- 
ness merely as evidences of a Divine operation 
on the heart, and as valuable simply on this ac- 
count. But such language is not borrowed from 
the Scriptures, Here we find faith and holiness 
considered as qualities valuable in themselves, 
aud as duties imperative on all to whom the mes- 
sage is published. “ Repent (i. e. change your 
principles) and believe the gospel,” is the sub- 
stance of the first discourse preached, after the 
ascension of our Lord, to his very murderers. 
And this same exhortation is thrown loose upon 


129° 


the world, and when rejected, is rejected wilfully 
and at the peril of the rejectors. ‘The evidences 
for the gospel, both external and internal, are suit- 
ed to the human faculties; and so too is the sub- 
stance of its contents, A sinner who admits its 
evidence, and who reads it with the attention which 
such an admission demands, and who finds in it 
peace to his conscience and good hope for eternity, 
through the great atonement, will assuredly, if he 
has indeed made this happy discovery, acknow- 
ledge, with humility and gratitude, the kindness 
of God in leading him out of darkness into this 
marvellous light; and he will continue to look to 
that divine and unseen influence, which first 
stopped him in his downward course, for support 
and encouragement during the remainder of his 
pilgrimage. And he who is condemned for re- 
jecting the gospel will be condemned on this 
ground, viz. that he might, as weil as ought, to 
have done otherwise; and that he has resisted the 
conviction both of his reason and conscience, 
which had testified against him, It is our duty 
and our privilege to look to the free offer of sal- 
vation, and the sufficiency of the atonement; and 
we are wandering from the Bible, and from peace, 
and from piety, when we occupy our thoughts 
with such difficulties, 

But why was this doctrine revealed, and what 
benefit is to be derived from believing it? What 
effect is the belief of it calculated to produce on 


130 


our characters; and what light does it throw on 
the character of God, or on the condition of man? 
As the work of the Spirit is to enlighten the eyes 
of our understanding with regard to divine truth, 
and to take of the things of Christ and show them 
to us, the belief of this doctrine of course includes 
the conviction, that we stand in need of this light, 
and that the inclination of our hearts naturally 
leads us from the things of Christ. This convic- 
tion, if real, will humble us before God, and ex- 
cite us to a jealous vigilance over every motion of 
our minds. In this doctrine, also, God gives a 
manifestation of his own character. He presents 
himself to his weak and ignorant creatures, as 
ready to meet all their wants, and supply all their 
deficiencies; and thus condescends to solicit their 
confidence. He promises his Spirit to those who 
ask; and thus invites and stimulates them to hold 
frequent intercourse with himself by prayer. He 
declares his holy anxiety for the advancement of 
the truth; and thus attracts their attention and 
regard to it. 

When the arguments of the gospel alarm or 
confirm or comfort the mind, the Holy Spirit is 
present; and the belief of this will unspeakably 
enforce the argument, --just as we often find that 
the presence and voice of a friend will give weight 
to reasons which would be disregarded in his ab- 
sence. If God thus offers us his spiritual presence 
and support through the medium. of his truth, 


131 


ought not we ever to carry about with us the re- 
membrance and the love of the truth, that we 
may enjoy much of his presence and support? If 
he is so watchiul over the progress of Christian 
principle in the hearts of men, ought not we also 
to be watchiul, lest we grieve him, and lest we 
lose the precious benefits of his instructions? As 
the gospel confines the influence of the Spirit to 
the truths contained in the written word, there is 
nothing to fear from fanaticism. The Holy Spirit 
does not now reveal any thing new, but impresses 
what is already revealed. 


132 


SECTION V. 


Ir thus appears that the gospel is a great store- 
house of medicines for the moral diseases of the 
human mind. It contains arguments most cor- 
rectly fitted to act powerfully on our reason and 
on our feelings; and these arguments are in them- 
selves naturally destructive of moral evil. They 
give a life and a reality to the shadowy traits of 
natural religion; they exhibit in a history of facts 
the abstract idea of the Divine character; and thus 
they render that character intelligible to the com- 
prehension, and impressive on the heart of man. 
And is there no need for this medicine? Ifit be 
admitted that wickedness and misery reign in 
this world to a frightful extent, and that nothing 
is more common thai. a strange carelessness about 
our Creator, and a decided spirit of hostility to 
the holiness of his character,—if it be admitted 
that there prevails through the hearts of our spe- 
cies, a proud selfishness of disposition which looks 
with indifference on the happiness or misery of 
others, unless where interest or vanity makes the 
exception,—and that whilst we profess to believe 


133. ° 


in a future state, we yet think and act as if our 
expectations and desires never stretched beyond 
this scene of transitory existence,—if all this be 
admitted, surely it must also be admitted that 
some remedy is most desirable. And when we 
consider that the root of all these evils is in the 
heart,—that the very first principles of our mo- 
ral nature are corrupted,—that the current of our 
wills is different from that of God’s,—and that 
whilst this difference continues, we must be un- 
happy, or, at best, most insecure of our enjoy- 
ment, in whatever region our lot of existence is 
cast,—the necessity of some powerful health-re- 
storing antidote will appear still more imperious, 
And can we think it improbable, that a gracious 
God would meet this necessity, and reveal this 
antidote? We have advanced a considerable step 
when we have admitted this probability. And 
When we see a system such as Christianity, as- 
serting to itself a divine original—tending most 
distinctly to the eradication of moral evil—har- 
monizing so beautifully with the most enlighten- 
ed views of the character of God, and adapted 
so wonderfully to the capacities of man,—does 
not the probability amount to an assurance that 
God has indeed made a movement towards man, 
and that such an antidote is indeed contained in 
the truth of the gospel? 

There are few minds darkened or hardened to 
such a degree, that they can not discern between 

M 


134 


moral good and evil. Hence it happens that the 
pure morality of the gospel is generally talked of 
with praise; and this is all. They admire the di- 
al-plate of the timepiece, and the accurate divi- 
sion of its circle; whilst they altogether pass over 
that nice adjustment of springs and weights which 
give its regulated movement to the index: They 
see notthe Divine wisdom of the doctrines, which 
can alone embody that pure morality in the cha- 
racters of those who receive them. 

Exactly from the same inadvertence, it is 
sometimes asked, ‘‘ Why so urgent with these 
abstruse and mysterious doctrines? It is, to be 
sure, very decent and proper to believe them: 
But the character is the great point; and if that 
be reformed, we need not care much about the 
means.” ‘These persons do not consider, that 
though it may be comparatively easy to restrain 
the more violent eruptions of those dispositions 
which are mischievous to society, it is no easy 
matter to plant in the heart the love of God which 


is the first and greatest moral precept of Christi- » 


anity. They do not consider that the character 
is in the mind; and that this character must re- 
ceive its denomination of good or bad, according 
as it capacitates its possessor for happiness or 
misery, when in direct contact with the charac- 
ter of God. The obedience of the will and of 
the heart is required; and this implies in it a love 
for those holy principles in which the rule of 


1 ei a me a _——_ — 


135 


duty is founded. A mere knowledge of duty, 
even when joined with a desire to fulfil it, can 
never inspire this love. We can not love any 


~ thing by simply endeavouring to love it: In or- 


der to this, we must see somewhat in it which 
naturally attracts our affections. Whatever this 
somewhat may be, it constitutes the doctrine 
which forms our characters on that particular 
subject. This law holds in all such operations 
of the mind; but most conspicuously does it hold 
where the natural bent of the inclination takes an 
opposite course,—as in the case of Christian 
duty. Duty must be presented to our minds, as 
associated with circumstances which will call 
forth our love,—as associated with the impulses 
of esteem, of gratitude, and interest,—else we 
can never love it. These circumstances consti- 
tute the Christian doctrines; and the reasonable- 
ness of continually and closely urging them, is 
founded on that law of the human mind which 
has been alluded to. It is not easy to cast out 
pride and self-conceit from the heart, nor to look 
upon the distresses of life with a cheerful acqui- 
escence in that sovereign will which appoints 
them. It is not easy for a mind which has been 
much engrossed by its outward relations to the 


_ visible system with which it is connected, to re= 


ceive and retain a practical impression, that there 
is, throughout the universe, one great spiritual 
and invisible dominion, to which all these lesser 


136 


systems are subservient, and in which they are 
embraced; and that these are but schools and 
training seminaries in which immortal spirits are 
placed, that they may learn to know and to do the 
will of God. It is not a mere knowledge of duty 
which will enable us to resist the noxious impres- 
sions which are continually emanating from the 
objects of our senses, and from the relations of 
life—to disregard the pressing temptations of am- 
bition or indolence, of avarice or sensuality—-to 
expel those worldly anxieties which corrode the 
soul—and to run the way of God’s command- 
ments, through difficulties and dangers, through 


evil report and good report. These things re- - | 


quire a more energetic principle than the know- 
ledge, even when conjoined with the approbation 
of what is right. The love of God must be root- 
ed in the heart: and this can only be accomplish- 
ed by habitually viewing him in all the amiable- 
ness of his love and of his holiness. We must 
acquaint ourselves with God; for itis the know- 
ledge of his high character alone which can bum- 
ble the pride of man, or throw light on the ob- 
scurities of his condition here, or call forth that 
sentiment of devoted love which will stamp the 
Divine image on his heart; and it is a conformity 
to that character alone which can make us free- 
men of the universe, and secure to us tranquillity 
and joy in every region of creation; because this 
conformity of character is the living principle of 


—— eee! ee 


137 


union which pervades and binds together the 
whole family of God, and capacitates the meanest 
of its members for partaking in the blessedness 
of their common Father. 

It should be observed, that when conformity to 
the Divine character is mentioned as the result 
of a belief of the Christian doctrine, it is very 
far from being meant that the conformity will 
be perfect, or that the character will be free from 
failings, or even considerable faults: All that is 
meant is, that the principle which will produce a 
perfect conformity is there. Thus we may say 
that a child has a conformity to his father’s will, 
if he is strongly attached to him, and is sincerely 
anxious to please him, although levity or passion 
may occasionally carry him off from his duty. 
This is only the budding-time of Christianity; 
eternity is the clime in which the flower blows. 
If it were perfected here, there would be no oc- 
casion for death,—this world would be heaven. 

When we talk of love towards an invisible 
being, we evidently mean love to the principles 
of his character. Love to God, therefore, implies 
a knowledge of his character; and thus, if in our 
idea of God, we exclude his holiness and justice 
and purity, and then give our affection to the re- 
_ maining fragments of his character, we do notin 
fact love God, but a creature of our own imagi- 
nation. It isa love of the whole, which can 
alone produce a resemblance of the whole; and 

' M 2 


138 


nothing short of this love can produce such a re- 
semblance. If this world bounded our existence, 
there would be little occasion for these heavenly 
views; because the order of society can in gene- 
ral be tolerably preserved by human laws, and 
the restraint of human opinion; and for the few 
years which we have to pass here, this is suffi- 
cient: But if we are placed here to become fit- 
ted for eternity, we must know God, and love 
him, in order that we may have pleasure in his 
presence, and in the manifestations of his will. 

There is an important part of the subject still 
untouched, which is intimately connected with 
the principle of the preceding argument, and is 
most deserving of a full and minute considera- 
tion: I mean the harmony which subsists be- 
tween the views of the Bible, and that system of 
events which is moving on around us. On this 
point, however, I shall only make a very few ge- 
neral observations. | 

If we look on this world as a school in which 
the principles of the Bible are inculcated and 


exercised, we shall find that the whole apparatus. 


is admirably fitted for the purpose. As.adven- 
tures of danger are adapted to exercise and con- 
firm the principle of intrepidity, so the varied 


events of life are adapted to exercise and confirm | 


the principles of the Christian character. The 
history of the world, and our own experience of it, 
present to us as it were a scene of shifting sand, 


—— 


139. 


without a single point on which we may reasona- 
bly rest the full weight of our hopes with perfect 
confidence. The gospel presents to us, on the 
other hand, the unchangeable character of God, 
and invites us to rest there. The object of our 
hope becomes the mould of our characters; and 
happiness consists in a character conformed to that 
of God. But there is a constant tendency in our 
minds to occupy themselves with the uncertain 
an unsatisfactory things which are seen, to the ex- 
clusion of that secure good which is unseen, Pain, 
disappointment, and death, are therefore sent to 
awaken us to reflection,—to warn us against re- 
posing on a shadow, which will stamp on us its 
own corruptible and fleeting likeness,—and to 
invite us to fix our feet on that substantial rock 
which can not fail. The happiness which God 
intends for men (according to the Bible) consists 
in a particular form of character; and that cha- 
racter can only be wrought out by trials and dif- 
ficulties and afflictions. If this were practically 
remembered, it would associate in our minds the 
sorrows of life with solid happiness and future 
glory. Every event, of whatever description it 
be, would appear to us as an opportunity of ex- 
ercising and strengthening some principle which 
contains in itself.the elements of happiness,— 
This consideration would swallow up, or at least 
very much abate, the dejection or exultation 
which the external form of the event is calculated 


140 


io excite, and produce cheerful and composed 
acquiescence in the appointments of Providence. 
“ In every thing give thanks; for this (event, 
whether prosperous or adverse) is the will of God 
in Christ Jesus towards you.” It forms a part 
of that system of wisdom and love, of which the 
gift of Christ is the prominent feature and the 
great specimen. Christ was given to bring men 


near to God, and every part of the system of © 


Providence is ordered with the same design. The 
Captain of our salvation was ‘a man of sor- 
rows, and acquainted with griefs;” and whilst 
his wisdom appoints the medicinal sorrow, his 
heart sympathizes with the sufferer. His suf- 
ferings were not only endured in satisfaction of 
Divine justice,—they also serve as a pattern of 
the way by which God leads those real sinners 
whom the sinless Saviour represented, unto ho- 
liness. When two of his disciples asked him 
for the chief places in his kingdom, the nature of 
which they had much mistaken, he answered 
them, ‘Can ye drink of the cup which I drink 
of, and can ye be baptized with the baptism 
which I am baptized with?”—thus teaching, that 
as his own way to glory lay through sorrows, so 
theirs dil also. His road and his glory were the 
patterns of theirs. Not that happiness and glory 
are given as an arbitrary premium for having suf- 
fered, but that the character which has been 
most exercised and refined by affliction contains 


141 


a greater proportion of the constituent elements 
of happiness and glory. Neither are we to sup- 
pose that afflictions necessarily produce this cha- 
racter: Indeed, the effect in many cases is the 
very reverse. But afflictions are important op- 
portunities of acquiring and growing in this cha- 
racter; which, as they can not be neglected with- 
out danger, so they can not be improved accord- 
ing to the directions of the gospel! without leading 
to a blessed result. The continual presence of 
God watching over the progress of his own work, 
and observing the spirit in which his creatures 
receive their appointed trials, is a great truth, 
which, if believed and remembered, would both 
excite to cheerful and grateful action, and would 
comfort under any sorrow. 

Every event affords opportunities of exercising 
love to God or man, humility, or heavenly-mind- 
edness; and thus every event may be made a step 
towards heaven: So that, if we were asked what 
sort of a theatre the principles of the gospel re- 
quired for its effectual operation on a being like 
man, it would be impossible to devise any which 
would appear even to our reason so suitable as 
the world which we see around us. Were the 
gospel different, or were man different, another 
theatre might be better; but whilst the human 
heart remains as it is, we require just such a pro- 
cess as that which is carried on here, for working 
the principles of the gospel into our moral con- 


142 


stitutions. We know, besides, that the Chris- 
tian character is adapted to the events of life; 
because it would produce happiness under those 
évents, whatever they might be. Thus it ap- 
pears, that the heart of man, the Bible, and the 
course of Providence, have a mutual adaptation 
to each other; and hence we may conclude, that 
they proceed from the same source,--we may 
conclude, that the same God who made man, 
and encompassed him with the trials of life, gave 
the Bible to instruct him how these trials might 
be made subservient to his eternal happiness 
The world then is a theatre for exercising and 
strengthening principles. Its events operate on 
the moral seeds in the human mind, as the ele- 
ments of nature, beat, moisture, and air, do on 
vegetable seeds. They develop their qualities, 
they foster them into life and energy, they bring 
forth into full display all their capacities of evil 
and good—-but they do the same office to poison- 
ous and useless seeds as to the most excellent. 
How careful then ought we to be that the moral 
principles of our minds should be of the right 
kind! Poisonous plants are native to this soil, 
whilst the immortal seed of divine truth is an 
exotic, from a more genial clime. But if this 
course of discipline be so necessary, for the 
growth and conformation of the truth in the heart, 
then the gospel may appear to be exclusively ad- 
dressed to those who have a series of years and 


143 


exercises before them. In what form can it ap- 
proach a deathbed? What has the Bible to say 
to a man within an hour of eternity, who has 
either never heard, or never attended, to the 
message of peace? In fact, it speaks the same 
language to him that it does to the youth just en- 
tering on the career of life--the same glad ti- 
dings are proclaimed to sinners of all ages—of 
all conditions, and in all circumstances; ‘ This 
is the testimony that God hath given to us eter- 
nal life, and this life is in his Son.”—Although 
happiness is necessarily connected with, or more 
properly is identical with, that holiness which 
the belief of the truth induces; yet pardon and 
acceptance are not the consequences of a change 
of character, they are the free gift of God, 
through Jesus Christ; and that they are so, en- 
ters into the very substance of that record which 
we are called on to believe, as the testimony of 
God. 

The judicial sentence against sin has been 
executed, and the honour of the divine law has 
been vindicated, by a deed of unutterable love, 
which claims from men the most grateful and 
reposing confidence in the reality of that mercy, 
and the inviolableness of that truth, which, 
amidst the agonies of death, declared the work 
of reconciliation accomplished. The belief of 
this transaction, if full and perfect, would at 
once, and instantaneously, change the heart into 


144 


a conformity with the will of God, which is the 
character of heaven, without which heaven could 
be no place of happiness. It is the weakness, — 
the deficiency, and unsettledness of this belief, 
which makes the transformation of the heart, in 
general, so tardy a process. ‘The tardiness does 
not, however, belong to the nature of the truth, 
but to the mode of its reception. And that Spirit, 
which is mighty in operation, can open the spi- 
ritual eye at the last moment to perceive the ex- 
cellency of the Saviour, and thus cause the young 
germ of glory to burst forth at once into full and 
vigorous life. 

Very sudden and unexpected changes of cha- 
racter do sometimes take place in the history of 
this world’s moralities; and it may perhaps as- 
sist our conception, to adduce an example of this 
kind in illustration of that higher and more im- 
portant change which we are at present consi- 
dering. Mr, Foster, in bis “ Essay on Decision 
of Character,” gives an account of a man who, 
from being a perfect prodigal, became all at 
‘once a most beggarly miser. Whilst yet a boy 
he had come tothe possession of a large fortune, 
and before he was of age be contrived to get rid 
of it by a course of the most profligate extrava- 
gance. After his last shilling was gone, his spi- 
rits fell, and he went out with the thought of 
putting an end to his life. Providence directed 
him to the top of an eminence, from which he 


—— 


145 


could survey every acre which he had so foolish- 
ly squandered. Here he sat down, and _ in bit- 
terness of heart contrasted his former splendour 
with his present wretchedness. As he viewed 
his past life, the absurdity of his conduct ap- 
peared to him so glaring, and want appeared so 
frightful, that he was filled with a loathing for 
every thing like expense. He instantly formed 
the resolution of retracing his steps, and recover- 
ing his possessions. He descended the hilla 
thorough miser, and continued so to his death, 
The principle of penurious and greedy saving 
had expelled its opposite, and taken firm hold of 
his soul; his character was entirely changed, and 
his future life was only a development of the 
feeling acquired in that moment. 

Now, though the change from one mode of 
selfishness to another, as in this instance, is a 
very different thing from the conversion of the 
heart to God; yet as the change of character in 
both cases arises from a real change in the con- 


viction of the mind as to what is truly good, (from 


whatever sources of influence these convictions 
may proceed, whether earthly, as in the one 
case, or heavenly, as in the other,) I consider my- 
self entitled to use this analogy as an argument 
against those who either ridicule sudden conver- 
sious as absurd fables, or who confine such events 
to the miraculous period of Christianity. Is it 


rational to suppose, that a conviction of the love 


N 


146 


of God—of the vastness of eternity—of the glory 
of heaven—of the misery of hell, should be in- 
sufficient to produce an instantaneous change of 
no fight nature, when we see so striking a change 
produced by the comparative prospect of wealth 
or poverty for a few uncertain years? Shall we 
suppose that the Spirit of God hath less power 
than the spirit of Mammon? or, Does it belong 
only to things which pass away, to exert a sove- 
reigaty over the springs of the mind? And are 
things which abide for ever, to be alone consider- 
ed as powerless and inefficient? Could we ima- 
gine such a thing as a paradise for misers under 
the government of a God, who giveth to all men 


liberally and ,upbraideth not, we might safely 


say, that if the young man, whose history we 
have been contemplating, had dropped down 
dead as he descended from the eminence which 
had witnessed his resolution, he would have been 
fit for a situation there. Nor would his former 


— 


conduct have debarred him from the full enjoy- — 
ment of its delights, So when the pardoning © 


mercy of God is perceived in its glory and. its © 


beauty, it capacitates the mind immediately, — 
however dark and vile before, for that bliss — 
which it so freely bestows, and girds and prepares _ 


the parting traveller for that everlasting kingdom 
of our Lord and Saviour, an entrance into which 
itso abundantly ministers, even though this may be 
the first look he has ever cast towards that happy 


147 


land, and the last look he takes of aught until 
the body returns to the dust, aud the spirit to him 
who gave it. 

The Bible never shuts out hope: and in the 
example of the thief on the cross, it invites the 
dying sinner to look, that he may live for ever, 
But the Bible never encourages the negligent, 
nor the presumptuous—it warns of the uncer- 
tainty of life and opportunity, and it exhibits the 
difficulty of overcoming settled habits of sin, un- 
der the similitude of the leopard changing his 
spots, or the Ethiopian his skin. In truth, every 
hour of delay makes this change more difficult 
and improbable,—because every hour is giving 
growth and strength to principles of an opposite - 
description; he is grieving and despising the Holy 
Spirit, and is making a dark league with hell, 
Which is gaining validity and ratification by . 
every act in accordance with it! 


148 


SECTION VI. 


I nave already explained two causes why spi- 
ritual Christianity is so much opposed, and so 
rarely received with true cordiality amongst meu. 
The first is, that its uncompromising holiness of 
principle arms against it all the corruptions of our 
nature: The second is, that it rarely gains an at- 
tentive and full consideration, so as to be appre- 


hended in all its bearings, both in relation to the 


character of God and its influence on the heart 
of man. 

I shall now mention another circumstance, 
nearly connected with the second of these causes, 
which often opposes the progress of true religion. 

Many persons, in their speculations on Chris- 
tianity, never get farther than the miracles which 
were wrought in confirmation of its divine au- 
thority. Those who reject them are called in- 
fidels, and those wlio admit them are called be- 
lievers; and yet, after all, there may be very 
little difference between them. A belief of the 
miracles narrated in the New Testament, does 
not constitute the faith of a Christian, These 


\ 
’ 


149 
miracles merely attest the authority of the mes- 
senger,—they are not themselves the message: 
They are like the patentee’s name on a patent 
medicine, which only attests its genuineness, and 
refers to the character of its inventor, but does 
not add to its virtue. Now, if we had such a 
scientific acquaintance with the general proper- 
ties of drugs, that from examining them we could 
predict their effects, then we should, in forming 
our judgment of a medicine, trust to our own 
analysis of its component parts, as well as to the 
inventor’s name on the outside; and if the phy- 
sician whose name it bore was a man of acknow- 
ledged eminence in his profession, we should be 
confirmed in our belief that it was really his in- 
vention, and not the imposture of an empiric, by 
observing that the skill displayed in its composi- 
tion was worthy of the character of its assigned. 
author, and that it was well suited to the cases 
which it was proposed to remedy. And even 
though the name should be somewhat soiled, 
so as tobe with difficulty deciphered, yet if the 
skill were distinctly legible, we should not hesi- 
tate to attribute it to a man of science, nor 
should we scruple to use it ourselves, on its own 
evidence, if our circumstances required such an 
application. 

If Alexander the Great could, by his own skill, 
have discovered, in the cup presented to him by 
Philip, certain natural causes restorative of 

N 2 


150 


health, his confidence in the fidelity of his physi- 
cian would have had a powerful auxiliary in his 
own knowledge of the subject. The conviction 
of his friend’s integrity was, in his case, however, 
sufficient by itself to overcome the suspicions of 
Parmenio. But if, by his own knowledge, he 
had detected any thing j in the cup which appear- 
ed to him decidedly noxious, his confidence in 
his friend would have only led him to the con- 

-elusion, that this cup was really not prepared by 

him, but that some traitor, unobserved by him, 
had infused a poisonous ingredient in it. 

In like manner, if we discern that harmony in 
the Christian revelation which is the stamp of 
God upon it, we shall find little difficulty in ad- 
mitting that external evidence by which he at- 
tested it to the world. And even though our 
opportunities or acquirements do not qualify us 
for following the argument in support of mira- 
cles, yet if we are convinced that the remedial 
virtue of its doctrines suits the necessities and 
diseases of our nature, we will not hesitate to as- 
sign it to the Great Physician of souls as. its 
author, nor will we scruple to use it for our own 
spiritual health, 

No one who knows what God is, will refuse 
to receive a system of doctrines which he really 
believes was communicated by God: But then, 
no one in the right exercise of his reason, can, 
by any evidence, be brought to believe that what 


151 


appears to him an absolute absurdity, did ever in 
truth come from God. At this point, the impor- 
tance of the internal evidence of revelation ap- 
pears most conspicuous. If any intelligent man 
has, from hasty views of the subject, received the 
impression that Christianity is an absurdity, or 
contains absurdities, he is in a condition to ex- 
amine the most perfect chain of evidence in its 
support, with the simple feeling of astonishment 
at the ingenuity and the fallability of the human 


understanding. On a man in this state of mind, — 


all arguments drawn from external evidence are 
thrown away. The thing which he wants is to 
know that the subject is worth a demonstration; 
and this can only be learned by the study of the 
Bible itself. Let him but give his unprejudiced 
attention to this book, and he will discover that 
there is contained in it the development of a 
mighty scheme, admirably fitted for the accom- 
plishment of a mighty purpose: He will discover 
that this purpose is no less than to impart to man 
the happiness of God, by conforming him to the 
character of God: And he will observe with de- 
light and with astonishment, that the grand and 
simple scheme by which this is accomplished, 
exhibits a system of moral mechanism, which, 
by the laws of our mental constitution, has a 
tendency to produce that character, as directly 
_ and necessarily as the belief of danger has to 
produce alarm, the belief of kindness to produce 


ys 


152 


gratitude, or the belief of worth to produce es- 
teem. He will discern, that this moral mechan- 
ism bears no mark of imposture or delusion, but 
consists simply in a manifestation of the moral 
character of God, accommodated to the under- 
standings and hearts of men. And lastly, he 
will perceive that this manifestation only gives 
life and palpability to that vague though sublime 
idea of the Supreme Being, which is suggested 
by enlightened reason and conscience. 

When a man sees all this in the Bible, his 
sentiment will be, ** I shall examine the evidence 
in support of the miraculous history of this book; 
and I can not but hope to find it convincing: But 
even should I be left unsatisfied as to the con- 
tinuity of the chain of evidence, yet of one thing 
Tam persuaded,—it has probed the disease of 
the human heart to the bottom; it has laid bare 
the source of its abberration from moral good 
and true happiness; and it has propounded a 
remedy which carries in itself the proof of its 
efliciency. The cause seems worthy of the in- 
terposition of God: He did once certainly display 
his own direct and immediate agency in the 
creation of the world; and shall I deem it incon- 
sistent with his gracious character, that he has 
made another immediate manifestation of him- 
self in a work which had for its object the resto- 
ration of innumerable immortal spirits to that 


153 


eternal happiness, from which, by their moral 
depravation, they had excluded themselves?” 

The external evidence is strong enough, if 
duly considered, to convince any man of any 
fact which he has not in the first place shut out 
from the common privilege of proof, by pronoun- 
cing it to be an impossibility. This idea of im- 
possibility, when attached to the gospel, arises 
generally, as was before observed, from some 
mistaken notion respecting the matter contained 
in it. A very few remarks may be sufficient to 
show that this isthe case. Those who hold this 
opinion do not mean to say absolutely that it is 
impossible to suppose, in consistency with reason, 
that God ever would make a direct manifesta- 
tion of his own immediate agency in any case 
whatever; because this would be in the very face 
of their own general acknowledgments with re- 
gard to the creation of the world: They must 
therefore be understood to mean no more, than 
that, considering the object and structure of 
Christianity, it is unreasonable to suppose that it 
could be the subject of a direct interposition 
from Heaven, We are thus brought precisely 
to the argument which it has been the intention of 
this Essay to illustrate. 

Now, if we suppose that it was one of the ob- 
jects of the Creator, in the formation of the 
world, to impress upon his intelligent creatures 
an idea of his moral character—or, in other 


154 


words, to teach them natural religion (and that 
it was one of his objects, we may presume, from 
its having in some measure had this effect),—it 
follows, that a direct and immediate agency on 
the part of God, is closely connected with the de- 
sign of manifesting his moral character to man; 
and we may expect to meet these two things 
linked together in the system of God’s govern- 
ment. If, therefore, the gospel contains a most 
vivid and impressive view of the Divine charac- 
ter, harmonizing with the revelation of nature, 
but far exceeding it in fulness and in power, are 
we to be surprised at an interposition in its be- 
half of the same agency which was once before 
exhibited for a similar purpose? Thus, the ob- 
ject of the gospel, and its adaptation to that ob- 
ject, become the great arguments for its truth; 
and those who have not studied it in this relation, 
are not competent judges of the question. In- 
deed, if we take the truth of the gospel for 
granted, we must infer that this distinct and 
beautiful adaptation of its means to its end, was 
intended by its Divine Author as its chief evi- 
dence; since he must have foreseen that not one 
out of a hundred who should ever hear of it could 
either have leisure or learning to weigh its exter- 
nal evidence. And this will explain a great deal 
of infidelity; for freethinkers in general are not 
acquainted with the substance of revelation; and 
thus they neglect that very point in it on which 


155 


God himself rested its probability, and by which 
he invites belief. 

There may be also, for any thing that the 
reasoners of this world know, cycles in the moral 
world as well as in the natural; there may be 
certain moral conjunctures, which, by the divine 
appointment, call for a manifestation of direct 
agency from the great First Cause; and in this 
view, a miraculous interposition, though posterior 
to the creation, can not be considered as an in- 
fringement of the original scheme of things, but 
as a part, and an essential part of it. When the 
world was less advanced in natural science than 
it is at present, a comet was considered an in- 
fringement on the original plan. And the period 
may arrive, and will assuredly arrive, when the 
spirits of just men made perfect shall discern as 
necessary a connection between the character of 
God and all the obscurities of his moral govern- 
ment in our world, as the philosopher now dis- 
cerns between the properties of matter and the 
movements of the various bodies belonging to our 
planetary system. 

’ If the gospel really was a communication from 
heaven, it was to be expected that it would be 
ushered into the world by a miraculous attesta- 
tion. It might have been considered as giving a 
faithful delineation of the Divine character, al- 
though it had not been so attested; but it could 
never have impressed so deep a conviction, nor 


156 


have drawn such reverence from the minds of 
men, had it not been sanctioned by credentials 
which could come from none other than the 
King of kings. As this conviction and_ this 
reverence were necessary to the accomplishment 
of its moral object, the miracles which produced 
them were also necessary. Under the name of 
miraculous attestations, I mean merely those 
miracles which were extrinsic to the gospel, and 
did not form an essential part of it; for the great- 
est miracles of all—namely, the conception, re- 
surrection, and ascension of our Lord—constitute 
the very substance of the Divine communication, 
and are essential to the development of that Di- 
vine character which gives to the gospel its 
whole tmportance. _ 

The belief of the miraculous attestation of the 
gospel, then, is just so far useful as it excites our 
reverence for and fixes our attention on the truth 
contained in the gospel. All the promises of the 
gospel are to faith in the gospel, and to those 
moral qualities which faith produces; and we 
can not believe that which we do not understand. 
We may believe that there is more in a thing than 
we can understand; or we may believe a fact, the 
causes or modes of which we do not understand; 
but our actual belief is necessarily limited by our 
actual understanding. Thus, we understand 
what we say when we profess our belief that 
God became man, although we do not understand 


157 


how. This how, therefore, is not the subject of 
belief; because it is not the subject of understand- 
ing. We, however, understand why,—namely, 
that sinners might be saved, and the Divine 
character made level to our capacities; and there- 
fore this is a subject of belief. In fact, we can 
as easily remember a thing which we. never 
knew, as believe a thing that we do not under- 
stand. In order, then, to believe the gospel, we 
must understand it; and in order to understand 
it, we must give it our serious attention, An 
admission of the truth of its miraculous attesta- 
tion, unaccompanied with a knowledge of its 
principles, serves no other purpose than to give 
a most mournful example of the extreme levity of 
the human mind. It is an acknowledgment 
that the Almighty took such a fatherly interest 
in the affairs of men, that he made a direct mani- 
festation of himself in this world, for their in- 
struction; and yet they feel no concern upon the 
. subject of this instruction. Nevertheless, they 
say, and perhaps think, that they believe the 
» gospel. One of the miraculous appearances con- 
nected with our Saviour’s ministry places this 
matter in a very clear light. When, on the 
- Mount of Transfiguration, he for a sbort time 
anticipated the celestial glory in the presence of 
three of his disciples, a voice came from Heaven 
saying, ‘This is my beloved Son; hear ye him.” 
He was sent to tell men something which they 
' 0 


158 


did not know. ‘Those, therefore, who believed 
the reality of this miraculous appearance, and yet 
did not listen to what he taught, rejected him on 
the very ground on which it was of prime impor- 
tance that they should receive him. 

The regeneration of the character is the grand 
object; and this can only be effected by the pres- 
sure of the truth upon the mind, Our knowledge 
of this truth must be accurate, in order that the 
image impressed upon the heart may be correct; 
but we must also know it in all the awfulness of 
its authority, in order that the impression may be 
deep and lasting. Its motives must be ever 
operating on us—its representations ever recur- 
ring to us—its hopes ever animating us. This 
will not relax, but rather increase our diligence 
in the business of life. When we are engaged 
in the service of a friend, do we find that the 
thought of that friend and of his kindness retards 
our exertions?>—No. And when we consider all 
the business of life as work appointed to us by 
our Father, we shall be diligent in it for his sake. — 
In fact, however clearly we may be able to state — 
the subject, and however strenuous we may be 
in all the orthodoxy of its defence, there must be 
some flaw in our view of it, if it remains only a 
casual or an uninfluential visiter of our hearts. 
Its interests are continually pressing; eternity is 
every moment coming nearer; and our charac~ 
ters are hourly assuming a form more decidedly 


159 


connected with the extreme of happiness or mise- 
ry. In such circumstances, trifling is madness. 
The professed infidel is a reasonable man in 
comparison with him who admits the Divine in- 
spiration of the gospel, and yet makes it a secon- 
dary object of his solicitude. 

The Monarch of the Universe has proclaimed 
a general amnesty of rebellion, whether we give 
or withhold our belief or our attention; and if 
an amnesty were all that we needed, our belief 
or our attention would probably never have been 
required. Qur notions of pardon and punish- 
ment are taken from our experience of human 
Jaws. We are in the habit of considering pun- 
ishment and transgression as two distinct and 
separate things, which have been joined together 
by authority, and pardon as nothing more than 
the dissolution of this arbitrary connection. And 
so it is amongst men; but so it is not in the world 
of spirits. Sin aed punishment there are one 
thing. Sin is a disease of the mind which ne- 
cessarily occasions misery; and therefore the 
pardon of sin, unless it be accompanied with 
some remedy for this disease, can not relieve from 
misery. 7 

This remedy, as I have endeavoured to ex-. 
plain, consists in the attractive and sanctifying 
influence of the Divine character manifested in 
Jesus Christ. Pardon is preached through him, 
and those who really believe are healed; for this 


160 


belief implants in the heart the love of God and 
the love of man, which is only another name for 
spiritual heaith. Carelessness, then, comes to 
the same thing as a decided infidelity. It mat- 
ters little in what particular way, or on what 
particular grounds, we put the gospel from us. 
If we do put it from us either by inattention or 
rejection, we lose all the benefits which it is 
fitted to bestow; whilst, on the other hand, he 
who does receive it, receives along with it all 
those benefits, whether his belief has originated 
from the external evidence, or simply from the 
conviction of guilt and the desire of pardon, and 
the discovery that the gospel meets his necessi- 
ties as a weak and sinful creature,—just as a 
voyager gains all the advantage of the informa- 
tion contained in his chart, whatever the evi- 
dence may have been on which he at first re- 
ceived it, 

This last illustration may explain to us why 
God should have declared faith to be the channel 
of all his mercies to his intelligent creatures. 
The chart is useless to the voyager, unless he 
believes that it is really a description of the 
ocean which he has to pass, with all its bounda- 
ries and rocks and shoals and currents; and the 
gospel is useless to man, unless he believes it to 
be a description of the character and will of that 
Great Being on whom his eternal interests de- 
pend. Besides, the nature of the gospel required 


161 


such a reception in another point of view: It was 
necessary to its very object, that its blessings 
should be distinctly marked out to be of free and 
unmerited bounty. When we speak of benefits 
freely bestowed, we say of them, “ You may 
have them by asking for them,—distinguishing 
them by this mode of expression as gifts, from 
those things for which we must give a price. 
Precisely the same idea is conveyed by the gos- 
pel declaration, ‘ Believe, and ye shall be sav- 
ed.” When it is asked, How am I to obtain 
God’s mercy? the gospel answers, that “‘ God 
has already declared himself reconciled through 
Jesus Christ;.so you may have it by believing 
it.” Faith, therefore, according to the gospel 
scheme, both marks the freeness of God’s mercy, 
and is the channel through which that mercy 
operates on the character. 

It has been my object, throughout this Essay, 
to draw the attention of the reader to the inter- 
nal structure of the religion of the Bible,—first, 
because I am convinced that no man in the un- 
fettered exercise of his understanding can fully 
and cordially acquiesce in its pretensions to Di- 
vine inspiration, until he sees in its substance 
that which accords both with the character of 
God and with the wants of man; and secondly, 
because any admission of its Divine original, if 
unaccompanied with a knowledge of its princi- 
ples, is absolutely useless, 

02 


162 


We generally find, that the objections which 


are urged by sceptics against the inspiration of 
the Bible, are founded on some apparent impro- 
bability in the detached parts of the system. 
These objections are often repelled by the de- 
fenders of Christianity as irrelevant; and the ob- 
jectors are referred to the unbroken and well- 
supported line of testimony in confirmation of its 
miraculous history. This may be a silencing 
argument, but it will not be a convincing one. 
The true way of answering such objections, 
when seriously and honestly made, seems to me 
to consist in showing the relation which these 
detached parts bear to the other parts, and then 
in explaining the harmony and efficiency of the 
whole system. When a man sees the fulness 
and beauty of this harmony, he will believe that 
the system of Christianity is in truth the plan of 
the Divine government, whether it has actually 
been revealed in a miraculous way or not; and 
if he finds that the fact of its being inspired really 
enters into the substance of the system, and is 
necessary to it, he will be disposed to believe 
that too. 

Let us suppose a man brought from the heart 
of Africa, perfectly ignorant of the discoveries of 
Europe, but of excellent parts: Let him be fully 
instructed in all the mathematical and physical 
knowledge connected with the Newtonian phi- 
losophy, but without having the system of astrono- 


“ee 
# 


163 


my communicated to him; and then let us sup- 
pose that his instructor should announce to him 
that most perfect and most beautiful of human 
discoveries under the name of a direct revelation 
from Heaven. The simplicity and the grandeur 
of the theory would fill his imagination, and 
fasten his attention; and as he advanced in the 
more minute consideration of all its bearings, the 
full and accurate agreement of its principles with 
all the phenomena of the heavenly bodies, would 
force on his mind a conviction of its truth, He 
may then be supposed to say to his instructor, 
* | believe that you have unfolded to me the true 
system of the material universe, whether you are 
really under the influence of inspiration or not, 
Indeed, the most thorough belief in your preten- 
sions could scarce add an iota to my conviction 
of the truth of your demonstration, I see a con- 
sistency in the thing itself, which excludes doubt- 
ing.” 

Ae judge of the probability or improbability 
of a new idea, by comparing it with those things 
which we are already acquainted with, and ob- 
serving how it fits in with them. The complete 
fitting-in of the astronomical system with facts 
already observed, is the ground of our belief in 
its truth. The materials of the system lie around 
us in the appearances of nature; and we are de- 
lighted to find an intelligible principle which 
will connect them all. Ifa person has paid no 


164 

attention to these appearances, he will feel pro- 
portionally little interest in the discovery of a 
connecting principle; because he has not felt that 
uneasiness of mind which is produced by the ob- 
servation of unexplained facts. A certain degree 
of education is necessary to excite this uneasy 
curiosity; and therefore both its pains and its 
pleasures are confined toa very limited number. 
But when the facts to be explained are connected 
with a deep and universal moral interest, and 
when the most ordinary powers of thinking are 
equal to the intellectual exertion which is re- 
quired, there can be no limitation either of the 
number of the students or of the intensity of the 
excitement, except in consequence of the most 
jamentable carelessness. 

The materials of the Christian system lie thick 
about us, They consist in the feelings of our 
own hearts, in the history of ourselves and of our 
species, and in the intimations which we have 
of God from his works and ways, and the judg- 
ments and anticipations of conscience. We feel 
that we are not unconcerned spectators of these 
things. We are sure, that if there be a principle 
which can explain and connect them all together, 
it must be a most important one for us; it must 
determine our everlasting destiny. Itis evident 
that this master-principle can exist nowhere but 
in the character of God. He is the universal 
Ruler, and he rules according to the principles 


165 


of his own character. The Christian system ac- 
cordingly consists in a development of the Divine 
character; and as the object of this development 
is a practical and moral one, it does not linger 
long to gratify a speculative curiosity, but hastes 
forward to answer that most interesting of all in- 
quiries, “What is the road to permanent happi- 
ness?” This question holds the same rank in 
moral questions, and enters as deeply into the 
mystery of God’s spiritual government, as the 
corresponding question, ‘“ What law regulates 
and retains a planet in its orbit?” does in the na- 
tural world. 

Ifa planet had a soul and a power of choice, 
and if, by wandering from its bright path, it in- 
curred the same perplexities and difficulties and 
dangers that man does when he strays from God, 
——and if the laws which direct its motions were 
addressed to its mind, and not, as impulses, on 
its material substance,—its inquiry, after it had 
left its course, would also be, ‘* How shall I re- 
gain my orbit of peace and of glory?” The an- 
swer to this question would evidently contain in 
it the whole philosophy of astronomy, as far as 
the order of its system was concerned. In like 
manner, the answer to the inquiry after spiritual 
and permanent happiness, embraces all the prin- 
ciples of the Divine government as far as man is 
concerned. : 

The answer to the planet would contain a de- 


166 


scription of its proper curve: But this is not 
enough,—the method of regaining it and continu- 
ing in it must be also explained. We may sup- 
pose it to be thus addressed,— Keep your eye 
and your thoughts fixed on that bright luminary, 
to whose generous influences you owe so many 
blessings. Your order, your splendour, your fer- 
tility, all proceed from your relation tohim. When 
that relationis infringed, these blessings disappear. 
Your experience tells you this. Retrace, then, 
your steps, by recalling to your grateful remem- 
brance his rich and liberal kindness. This grate- 
ful and dependent affection is the golden chain 
which binds you to your orbit of peace and of 
glory.” 

To man’s inquiry after permanent happiness, 
an answer is given to the same purpose. ‘The 
path of duty and of happiness is marked out in 
such precepts as the following: ‘* Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thine heart and soul 
and mind and strength, and thy neighbour as 
thyself; ‘“ Glorify God in your bodies and your 
spirits, which are God’s;” ‘“* Be not conformed to 
this world, but be ye transformed by the renew- 
ing of your minds, that ye may prove what is that 
good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” 
But this is not enough. Man bas wandered from 
this good path, and in wandering from it, he has 
come under the influence of base attractions, 
which draw away his will in opposition to the 


167 


testimony of his conscience, and the acknow- 
ledgments of his understanding. To overcome 
these misleading influences, the gospel introduces 
an attracting principle, most holy in its nature 
and most constraining in its power, It reveals 
to him the full danger of his wanderings, but it 
reveals also to him the full mercy and loveliness 
of his God. It declares that God so loved the 
world, as to give his only-begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth in Him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life—and that Christ hath re- 
deemed us from the condemnation of the law, 
having endured that condemnation in our stead— 
and that, on as many as receive Him, he confers 
the privilege of being the sons of God. This is 
the great truth, for the manifestation and devel- 
opment of which this world was created, and is 
preserved— and this it is, which, when perceiv- 
ed in all its vast reality by the light of the Holy 
Spirit, transforms the slave of sin into a child of 
God, and an heir of immortal glory. And any 
one who humbly and candidly considers the Di- 
vine character of Jove and of holiness which is de- 
veloped in the history of Jesus Christ, will dis- 
cover in it the true centre of moral gravitation— 
the Sun of Righteousness, set in the heavens to 
drive darkness and chaos from our spiritual sys- 
tem, and by its sweet and powerful influence to 
attract the wandering affections of men into an 
orbit appointed by the will and illumined by the 


168 


favour of God. According to this system a grate- 
ful and humble affection towards God, founded 
on a knowledge of his true character, is the prin- 
ciple of order and of happiness in the moral world. 
The confusion and the restlessness which we see 
in the world, and which we often experience in 
our own breasts, give abundant testimony to the 
truth of this proposition in its negative form. Ig- 
norance and indifference about the character of 
God generally prevail; we love the creature more 
than the Creator—the gifts more than the giver 
our own inclinations more than his will. The 
wind is sown, and can we wonder that the whirl- 
wind is reaped? And is it not evident to reason, 
that an entire conformity to the Ruling Will of 
the universe, is only another name for order and 
happiness? and can this conformity be produced 
in any rational being, except bya knowledge and 
a love of that will? The character of God is 
manifested in the history of Jesus Christ, for our 
knowledge and for our love. This manifestation 
harmonizes with the suggestions of reason and 
conscience on the subject: Nay more, it gathers 
them up, as they lie before the mind in detached 
fragments; it supplies their deficiencies, and 
unites them all in one glorious fabric of perfect 
symmetry and beauty. It meets the heart of man, 
in all its capacities and affections; its appeal is 
exactly shaped for the elementary principles of 
our nature. The glorious truth which it reveals 


169 


is adapted to every mind; it is intelligible to a 
child, and yet will dilate the understanding of an 
angel. As the understanding enlarges, this truth 
stiil grows upon it, and must for ever grow upon 
it, because it is the image of the infinite God. 
Yet, great as itis, it is fitted to produce its effect, 
wherever it is received, however limited the Ca- 
pacity into which it enters. The principle of 
the wedge operates as fully at the first stroke as 
at any subsequent one, although the effect is not 
SO apparent, 

I have endeavoured, in the course of these re- 
marks, to give an idea of the mode which seems 
to me best fitted for illustrating the harmony 
which subsists between the Christian system and 
the mass of moral facts which lie without us and 
within us. Ihave endeavoured to explain the 
greatuess of its object, and its natural fitness for 
the accomplishment of that object. He who has 
not given his earnest attention to these things, 
may call himself an infidel, or a believer, but he 
has yet to learn what that doctrine is which he 
rejects or admits. 

There is nothing new in this cursory sketch of 
Christian doctrines. Indeed, I should conceive 
a proof of novelty on such a subject as tantamount 
to a proof of error. But I think that the view 
here taken has not been sufficiently pressed as an 
argument in favour of the credibility of revela- 
tion: for, although an indirect kind of evidence 

P 


170 


in itself, it seems well fitted for preparing and 
disposing an unbeliever to examine with candour 
the more direct proof which arises from histori- 
cal testimony. And it may also perform the no ~ 
less important office of infusing into a nominal 
Christian, a doubt as to his sincerity in the pro- 
fession of a faith which has perhaps neither made 
a distinct impression on his understanding, nor 
touched his heart, nor affected his character. — 


THE END. 


a0) 171 
a : 

*,* In the 838th page there is a proposition which has 
been subjected to considerable censure, and not with- 
out justice as it has been understood. ‘The proposition 
is, “ That the facts of Christianity are nothing more than 
the abstract principles of natural religion, embodied in 
perspicuity and efficiency.” Had I meant by this, that 
the facts of Christianity could have been anticipated by 
any one who was acquainted with the principles of na- 
tural religion—or that no new information was commu- 
nicated by the gospel, Ishould have been opposing the 
claim, and giving up the importance of revelation. Man 
never could have discovered the plan of salvation; but 
after it is revealed, he can perceive its agreement with 
those principles which had been previously acknow- 
ledged. That God must always act in consistency with 
both justice and mercy, the natural religionist believes; 
but how these attributes can be brought into har- 
monious contact in the restoration of the guilty, he 
knows not. When, however, the doctrine of the cross 
of Christ is understood by him, he immediately recog- 
nises in it, the full maturity and development of princi- 
ples which he had known in their elementary seeds. 
The information of the gospel is new, but not strange. 
Two recognised attributes of the Deity are manifested 
in a new connection, but no new attribute is introduced. 
I should now prefer that the proposition had been ex- 
pressed differently, as thus, ‘* That its facts do embody 
in perspicuity and efficieney the abstract principles of 
natural religion.”” I am aware also that there is a con- 
siderable vagueness in the term “ natural religion;” but 
there is no other word for it, and metaphysical accuracy 
is not of much moment here. 


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